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THE 
 
 MUDFOG PAPERS, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 EY 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE PICKWICK PAPERS," ETC. 
 
 NOW FIRST COLLECTED. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 |tablisfyers in ©rbittarg 10 fjtx Pajeaig i\t %wtm* 
 
 {All rights reserved.) 
 
The papers contained in this little volume 
 were written by Charles Dickens for the 
 early numbers of " Bentley's Miscellany." 
 The manuscripts of the two meetings of the 
 Mudfog Association, and of " Mr. Robert 
 Bolton, the gentleman connected with the 
 Press/' in my possession, are covered with 
 corrections, erasures, and additions. At that 
 time Charles Dickens wrote a freer and 
 bolder hand than he came to write in later 
 years, and these manuscripts are easily 
 decipherable. 
 
 765936 
 
IV 
 
 Something perhaps of the comparative 
 freedom of the handwriting of these sketches, 
 when set by the side of the manuscript of 
 " Our Mutual Friend," may be owing to the 
 quill pen, with whose exit has gone out much 
 of that free and graceful penmanship of 
 which Mr. Lupton reminds us that Thomas 
 Tomkins, of St. Paul's School, was so un- 
 rivalled a teacher. 
 
 GEORGE BENTLEY. 
 
 New Burlington Street, 
 July 26th, 
 
PUBLIC LIFE OF MR. TULRUMBLE, 
 
 ONCE MAYOR OF MUDFOG. 
 
 Mudfog is a pleasant town — a remarkably 
 pleasant town — situated in a charming hollow 
 by the side of a river, from which river, Mud- 
 fog derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, 
 coals, and rope-yarn, a roving population in 
 oil-skin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken 
 bargemen, and a great many other maritime 
 advantages. There is a good deal of water 
 about Mudfog, and yet it is not exactly the 
 sort of town for a watering-place, either. 
 Water is a perverse sort of element at the 
 best of times, and in Mudfog it is particu- 
 larly so. In winter, it comes oozing down 
 
 I 
 
2 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 the streets and tumbling over the fields, — nay, 
 rushes, into the very cellars and kitchens of 
 the houses, -.villi a lavish prodigality that 
 might well be dispensed with ; but in the hot 
 summer weather it will dry up, and turn 
 green : and, although green is a very good 
 colour in its way, especially in grass, still it 
 certainly is not becoming to water ; and it 
 cannot be denied that the beauty of Mudfog 
 is rather impaired, even by this trifling cir- 
 cumstance. Mudfog is a healthy place — very 
 healthy ; — damp, perhaps, but none the worse 
 for that. It's quite a mistake to suppose that 
 damp is unwholesome : plants thrive best in 
 damp situations, and why shouldn't men ? 
 The inhabitants of Mudfog are unanimous in 
 asserting that there exists not a finer race of 
 people on the face of the earth ; here we 
 have an indisputable and veracious contra- 
 diction of the vulgar error at once. So, 
 admitting Mudfog to be damp, we distinctly 
 state that it is salubrious. 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrutnble. 3 
 
 The town of Mudfog is extremely pic- 
 turesque. Limehouse and Ratcliff Highway 
 are both something like it, but they give you 
 a very faint idea of Mudfog. There are a 
 great many more public-houses in Mudfog — 
 more than in Ratcliff Highway and Lime- 
 house put together. The public buildings, 
 too, are very imposing. We consider the 
 town-hall one of the finest specimens of 
 shed architecture, extant : it is a combination 
 of the pig-sty and tea-garden-box, orders ; 
 and the simplicity of its design is of sur- 
 passing beauty. The idea of placing a large 
 window on one side of the door, and a 
 small one on the other, is particularly happy. 
 There is a fine bold Doric beauty, too, about 
 the padlock and scraper, which is strictly in 
 keeping with the general effect. 
 
 In this room do the mayor and corpora- 
 tion of Mudfog assemble together in solemn 
 council for the public weal. Seated on the 
 massive wooden benches, which, with the 
 
4 Public Life of Mr. Titlrumble. 
 
 table in the centre, form the only furniture of 
 the whitewashed apartment, the sage men of 
 Mudfog spend hour after hour in grave de- 
 liberation. Here they settle at what hour 
 of the night the public-houses shall be closed, 
 at what hour of the morning they shall be 
 permitted to open, how soon it shall be law- 
 ful for people to eat their dinner on church ■ 
 days, and other great political questions ; and 
 sometimes, long after silence has fallen on the 
 town, and the distant lights from the shops 
 and houses have ceased to twinkle, like far- 
 off stars, to the sight of the boatmen on the 
 river, the illumination in the two unequal- 
 sized windows of the town-hall, warns the 
 inhabitants of Mudfog that its little body of 
 legislators, like a larger and better-known 
 body of the same genus, a great deal more 
 noisy, and not a whit more profound, are 
 patriotically dozing away in company, far 
 into the night, for their country's good. 
 
 Among this knot of sage and learned 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 5 
 
 men, no one was so eminently distinguished, 
 during many years, for the quiet modesty of 
 his appearance and demeanour, as Nicholas 
 Tulrumble, the well-known coal-dealer. How- 
 ever exciting the subject of discussion, how- 
 ever animated the tone of the debate, or 
 however warm the personalities exchanged, 
 (and even in Mudfog we get personal some- 
 times,) Nicholas Tulrumble was always the 
 same. To say truth, Nicholas, being an 
 industrious man, and always up betimes, was 
 apt to fall asleep when a debate began, and 
 to remain asleep till it was over, when he 
 would wake up very much refreshed, and 
 give his vote with the greatest complacency. 
 The fact was, that Nicholas Tulrumble, know- 
 ing that everybody there had made up his 
 mind beforehand, considered the talking as 
 just a long botheration about nothing at all ; 
 and to the present hour it remains a question, 
 whether, on this point at all events, Nicholas 
 Tulrumble was not pretty near right. 
 
6 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 Time, which strews a man's head with 
 silver, sometimes fills his pockets with gold. 
 As he gradually performed one good office 
 for Nicholas Tulrumble, he was obliging 
 enough, not to omit the other. Nicholas 
 began life in a wooden tenement of four feet 
 square, with a capital of two and ninepence, 
 and a stock in trade of three bushels and 
 a-half of coals, exclusive of the large lump 
 which hung, by way of sign-board, outside. 
 Then he enlarged the shed, and kept a truck; 
 then he left the shed, and the truck too, and 
 started a donkey and a Mrs. Tulrumble ; then 
 he moved again and set up a cart ; the cart 
 was soon afterwards exchanged for a waggon ; 
 and so he went on like his great predecessor 
 Whittington — only without a cat for a partner 
 — increasing in wealth and fame, until at last 
 he gave up business altogether, and retired 
 with Mrs. Tulrumble and family to Mudfog 
 Hall, which he had himself erected, on some- 
 thing which he attempted to delude himself 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 7 
 
 into the belief was a hill, about a quarter of 
 a mile distant from the town of Mudfog. 
 
 About this time, it began to be murmured 
 in Mudfog that Nicholas Tulrumble was 
 growing vain and haughty ; that prosperity 
 and success had corrupted the simplicity of 
 his manners, and tainted the natural goodness 
 of his heart ; in short, that he was setting up 
 for a public character, and a great gentleman, 
 and affected to look down upon his old com- 
 panions with compassion and contempt. 
 Whether these reports were at the time 
 well-founded, or not, certain it is that Mrs. 
 Tulrumble very shortly afterwards started a 
 four-wheel chaise, driven by a tall postilion in 
 a yellow cap, — that Mr. Tulrumble junior 
 took to smoking cigars, and calling the foot- 
 man a " feller/' — and that Mr. Tulrumble 
 from that time forth, was no more seen in his 
 old seat in the chimney-corner of the Lighter- 
 man's Arms at night. This looked bad ; but, 
 more than this, it began to be observed that 
 
8 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble attended the cor- 
 poration meetings more frequently than here- 
 tofore ; and he no longer went to sleep as he 
 had done for so many years, but propped his 
 eyelids open with his two fore-fingers ; that he 
 read the newspapers by himself at home ; 
 and that he was in the habit of indulging 
 abroad in distant and mysterious allusions to 
 " masses of people," and " the property of 
 the country,'' and " productive power," and 
 " the monied interest : " all of which denoted 
 and proved that Nicholas Tulrumble was 
 either mad, or worse ; and it puzzled the good 
 people of Mudfog amazingly. 
 
 At length, about the middle of the month 
 of October, Mr. Tulrumble and family went 
 up to London ; the middle of October being, 
 as Mrs. Tulrumble informed her acquaintance 
 in Mudfog, the very height of the fashionable 
 season. 
 
 Somehow or other, just about this time, 
 despite the health-preserving air of Mudfog, 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 9 
 
 the Mayor died. It was a most extraordinary 
 circumstance ; he had lived in Mudfog for 
 eighty-five years. The corporation didn't 
 understand it at all ; indeed it was with great 
 difficulty that one old gentleman, who was 
 a great stickler for forms, was dissuaded from 
 proposing a vote of censure on such unac- 
 countable conduct. Strange as it was, how- 
 ever, die he did, without taking the slightest 
 notice of the corporation ; and the corporation 
 were imperatively called upon to elect his 
 successor. So, they met for the purpose ; 
 and being very full of Nicholas Tulrumble 
 just then, and Nicholas Tulrumble being a 
 very important man, they elected him, and 
 wrote off to London by the very next post to 
 acquaint Nicholas Tulrumble with his new 
 elevation. 
 
 Now, it being November time, and Mr. 
 Nicholas Tulrumble being in the capital, it 
 fell out that he was present at the Lord 
 Mayors show and dinner, at sight of the 
 
io Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 glory and splendour whereof, he, Mr. Tul- 
 rumble, was greatly mortified, inasmuch as 
 the reflection would force itself on his mind, 
 that, had he been born in London instead of 
 in Mudfog, he might have been a Lord Mayor 
 too, and have patronized the judges, and been 
 affable to the Lord Chancellor, and friendly 
 with the Premier, and coldly condescending 
 to the Secretary to the Treasury, and have 
 dined with a flag behind his back, and done 
 a great many other acts and deeds which 
 unto Lord Mayors of London peculiarly 
 appertain. The more he thought of the 
 Lord Mayor, the more enviable a personage 
 he seemed. To be a King was all very well; 
 but what was the King to the Lord Mayor ! 
 When the King made a speech, everybody 
 knew it was somebody else's writing; whereas 
 here was the Lord Mayor, talking away for 
 half an hour — all out of his own head — amidst 
 the enthusiastic applause of the whole com- 
 pany, while it was notorious that the King 
 
Public Life of Mr. TiUrttmble. 1 1 
 
 might talk to his parliament till he was black 
 in the face without getting so much as a single 
 cheer. As all these reflections passed through 
 the mind of Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble, the 
 Lord Mayor of London appeared to him the 
 greatest sovereign on the face of the earth, 
 beating the Emperor of Russia all to nothing, 
 and leaving the Great Mogul immeasurably 
 behind. 
 
 Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was pondering 
 over these things, and inwardly cursing the 
 fate which had pitched his coal-shed in Mud- 
 fog, when the letter of the corporation was put 
 into his hand. A crimson flush mantled over 
 his face as he read it, for visions of brightness 
 were already dancing before his imagination. 
 
 11 My dear," said Mr. Tulrumble to his 
 wife, " they have elected me, Mayor of Mud- 
 fog." 
 
 " Lor-a-mussy ! n said Mrs. Tulrumble : 
 " why what's become of old Sniggs ? " 
 
 " The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, ,, 
 
12 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 said Mr. Tulrumble sharply, for he by no 
 means approved of the notion of uncere- 
 moniously designating a gentleman who filled 
 the high office of Mayor, as " Old Sniggs," 
 — " The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, is 
 dead." 
 
 The communication was very unexpected ; 
 but Mrs. Tulrumble only ejaculated " Lor-a- 
 mussy ! " once again, as if a Mayor were a 
 "mere ordinary Christian, at which Mr. Tul- 
 rumble frowned gloomily. 
 
 " What a pity 'tan't in London, ain't it ? " 
 said Mrs. Tulrumble, after a short pause ; 
 " what a pity 'tan t in London, where you 
 might have had a show." 
 
 " I might have a show in Mudfog, if I 
 thought proper, I apprehend," said Mr. Tul- 
 rumble mysteriously. 
 
 " Lor ! so you might, I declare," replied 
 Mrs. Tulrumble. 
 
 "And a good one too," said Mr. Tul- 
 rumble. 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 1 3 
 
 " Delightful ! " exclaimed Mrs. Tul- 
 rumble. 
 
 " One which would rather astonish the 
 ignorant people down there/' said Mr. Tul- 
 rumble. 
 
 11 It would kill them with envy," said Mrs. 
 Tulrumble. 
 
 So it was agreed that his Majesty's lieges 
 in Mudfog should be astonished with splen- 
 dour, and slaughtered with envy, and that' 
 such a show should take place as had never 
 been seen in that town, or in any other town 
 before, — no, not even in London itself. 
 
 On the very next day after the receipt of 
 the letter, down came the tall postilion in a 
 post-chaise, — not upon one of the horses, 
 but inside — actually inside the chaise, — and, 
 driving up to the very door of the town-hall, 
 where the corporation were assembled, de- 
 livered a letter, written by the Lord knows 
 who, and signed by Nicholas Tulrumble, in 
 which Nicholas said, all through four sides of 
 
14 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 closely-written, gilt-edged, hot-pressed, Bath 
 post letter paper, that he responded to the 
 call of his fellow-townsmen with feelings of 
 heartfelt delight; that he accepted the arduous 
 office which their confidence had imposed 
 upon him ; that they would never find him 
 shrinking from the discharge of his duty ; 
 that he would endeavour to execute his func- 
 tions with all that dignity which their magni- 
 tude and importance demanded ; and a great 
 more to the same effect. But even this was 
 not all. The tall postilion produced from his 
 right-hand top-boot, a damp copy of that 
 afternoons number of the county paper ; and 
 there, in large type, running the whole length 
 of the very first column, was a long address 
 from Nicholas Tulrumble to the inhabitants 
 of Mudfog, in which he said that he cheer- 
 fully complied with their requisition, and, in 
 short, as if to prevent any mistake about the 
 matter, told them over again what a grand 
 fellow he meant to be, in very much the same 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 15 
 
 terms as those in which he had already told 
 them all about the matter in his letter. 
 
 The corporation stared at one another 
 very hard at all this, and then looked as if 
 for explanation to the tall postilion, but as the 
 tall postilion was intently contemplating the 
 gold tassel on the top of his yellow cap, and 
 could have afforded no explanation whatever, 
 even if his thoughts had been entirely dis- 
 engaged, they contented themselves with 
 coughing very dubiously, and looking very 
 grave. The tall postilion then delivered 
 another letter, in which Nicholas Tulrumble 
 informed the corporation, that he intended 
 repairing to the town-hall, in grand state and 
 gorgeous procession, on the Monday after- 
 noon next ensuing. At this the corporation 
 looked still more solemn ; but, as the epistle 
 wound up with a formal invitation to the 
 whole body to dine with the Mayor on that 
 day, at Mudfog Hall, Mudfog Hill, Mudfog, 
 they began to see the fun of the thing directly, 
 
1 6 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 and sent back their compliments, and they'd 
 be sure to come. 
 
 Now there happened to be in Mudfog, as 
 somehow or other there does happen to be, 
 in almost every town in the British dominions, 
 and perhaps in foreign dominions too — we 
 think it very likely, but, being no great 
 traveller, cannot distinctly say — there hap- 
 pened to be, in Mudfog, a merry-tempered, 
 pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing sort of vaga- 
 bond, with an invincible dislike to manual 
 labour, and an unconquerable attachment to 
 strong beer and spirits, whom everybody 
 knew, and nobody, except his wife, took the 
 trouble to quarrel with, who inherited from 
 his ancestors the appellation of Edward 
 Twigger, and rejoiced in the sobriquet of 
 Bottle-nosed Ned. He was drunk upon the 
 average once a day, and penitent upon an 
 equally fair calculation once a month ; and 
 when he was penitent, he was invariably in 
 the very last stage of maudlin intoxication. 
 
Public Life of Mr. Ttilrumble. 17 
 
 He was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of 
 fellow, wi$i a burly form, a sharp wit, and a 
 ready head, and could turn his hand to any- 
 thing when he chose to do it. He was by no 
 means opposed to hard labour on principle, 
 for he would work away at a cricket-match 
 by the day together, — running, and catching, 
 and batting, and bowling, and revelling in 
 toil which would exhaust a galley-slave. He 
 would have been invaluable to a fire-office ; 
 never was a man with such a natural taste 
 for pumping engines, running up ladders, and 
 throwing furniture out of two-pair-of-stairs 
 windows : nor was this the only element in 
 which he was at home ; he was a humane 
 society in himself, a portable drag, an animated 
 life-preserver, and had saved more people, 
 in his time, from drowning, than the Plymouth 
 life-boat, or Captain Manby's apparatus. 
 With all these qualifications, notwithstanding 
 his dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a 
 general favourite ; and the authorities of 
 
1 8 Ptiblic Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 Mudfog, remembering his numerous services 
 to the population, allowed him in return to 
 get drunk in his own way, without the fear 
 of stocks, fine, or imprisonment. He had a 
 general licence, and he showed his sense of 
 the compliment by making the most of it. 
 
 We have been thus particular in describing 
 the Character and avocations of Bottle-nosed 
 Ned, because it enables us to introduce a fact 
 politely, without hauling it into the readers 
 presence with indecent haste by the head and 
 shoulders, and brings us very naturally to 
 relate, that on the very same evening on 
 which Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble and family 
 returned to Mudfog, Mr. Tulrumble's new 
 secretary, just imported from London, with a 
 pale face and light whiskers, thrust his head 
 down to the very bottom of his neckcloth-tie, 
 in at the tap-room door of the Lighterman's 
 Arms, and inquiring whether one Ned Twig- 
 ger was luxuriating within, announced him- 
 self as the bearer of a message from Nicholas 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 19 
 
 Tulrumble, Esquire, requiring Mr. Twigger's 
 immediate attendance at the hall, on private 
 and particular business. It being by no 
 means Mr. Twigger's interest to affront the 
 Mayor, he rose from the fire-place with a 
 slight sigh, and followed the light-whiskered 
 secretary through the dirt and wet of Mud- 
 fog streets, up to Mudfog Hall, without 
 further ado. 
 
 Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was seated in a 
 small cavern with a skylight, which he called 
 his library, sketching out a plan of the pro- 
 cession on a large sheet of paper; and 
 into the cavern the secretary ushered Ned 
 Twigger. 
 
 "Well, Twigger!" said Nicholas Tul- 
 rumble, condescendingly. 
 
 There was a time when Twigger 
 would have replied, "Well, Nick!" but 
 that was in the days of the truck, and a 
 couple of years before the donkey ; so, he 
 only bowed. 
 
20 Public Life of Mr. Ttdrumble. 
 
 " I want you to go into training, Twigger," 
 said Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 " What for, sir?" inquired Ned, with a 
 stare. 
 
 " Hush, hush, Twigger ! " said the Mayor. 
 " Shut the door, Mr. Jennings. Look here, 
 Twigger." 
 
 As the Mayor said this, he unlocked a 
 high closet, and disclosed a complete suit of 
 brass armour, of gigantic dimensions. 
 
 " I want you to wear this next Monday, 
 Twigger," said the Mayor. 
 
 " Bless your heart and soul, sir ! " replied 
 Ned, " you might as well ask me to wear a 
 seventy-four pounder, or a cast-iron boiler." 
 
 " Nonsense, Twigger, nonsense ! " said 
 the Mayor. 
 
 " I couldn't stand under it, sir," said 
 Twigger ; " it would make mashed potatoes 
 of me, if 1 attempted it." 
 
 " Pooh, pooh, Twigger ! " returned the 
 Mayor. " I tell you I have seen it done 
 
Public Life of Mr, Tulrumble. 21 
 
 with my own eyes, in London, and the man 
 wasn't half such a man as you are, either." 
 
 " I should as soon have thought of a 
 man's wearing the case of an eight-day 
 clock to save his linen," said Twigger, 
 casting a look of apprehension at the brass 
 suit. 
 
 " It's the easiest thing in the world," 
 rejoined the Mayor. 
 
 " It's nothing," said Mr. Jennings. 
 "When you're used to it," added Ned. 
 " You do it by degrees," said the Mayor. 
 " You would begin with one piece to-morrow, 
 and two the next day, and so on, till you had 
 got it all on. Mr. Jennings, give Twigger 
 a glass of rum. Just try the breast-plate, 
 Twigger. Stay ; take another glass of rum 
 first. Help me to lift it, Mr. Jennings. 
 Stand firm, Twigger ! There ! — it isn't half 
 as heavy as it looks, is it ? " 
 
 Twigger was a good strong, stout fellow ; 
 so, after a great deal of staggering, he 
 
22 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 managed to keep himself up, under the 
 breast-plate, and even contrived, with the 
 aid of another glass of rum, to walk about 
 in it, and the gauntlets into the bargain. 
 He made a trial of the helmet, but was not 
 equally successful, inasmuch as he tipped 
 over instantly, — an accident which Mr. 
 Tulrumble clearly demonstrated to be occa- 
 sioned by his not having a counteracting 
 weight of brass on his legs. 
 
 " Now, wear that with grace and pro- 
 priety on Monday next," said Tulrumble, 
 " and I'll make your fortune." 
 
 "Til try what I can do, sir," said Twigger. 
 " It must be kept a profound secret," 
 said Tulrumble. 
 
 " Of course, sir," replied Twigger. 
 " And you must be sober," said Tul- 
 rumble ; " perfectly sober." 
 
 Mr. Twigger at once solemnly pledged 
 himself to be as sober as a judge, and 
 Nicholas Tulrumble was satisfied, although, 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 23 
 
 had we been Nicholas, we should certainly 
 have exacted some promise of a more specific 
 nature ; inasmuch as, having attended the 
 Mudfog assizes in the evening more than 
 once, we can solemnly testify to having seen 
 judges with very strong symptoms of dinner 
 under their wigs. However, that's neither 
 here nor there. 
 
 The next day, and the day following, and 
 the day after that, Ned Twigger was securely 
 locked up in the small cavern with the sky- 
 light, hard at work at the armour. With 
 every additional piece he could manage to 
 stand upright in, he had an additional glass 
 of rum ; and at last, after many partial suf- 
 focations, he contrived to get on the whole 
 suit, and to stagger up and down the room 
 in it, like an intoxicated effigy from West- 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 Never was man so delighted as Nicholas 
 Tulrumble ; never was woman so charmed as 
 Nicholas Tulrumble's wife. Here was a 
 
24 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 sight for the common people of Mudfog ! A 
 live man in brass armour ! Why, they would 
 go wild with wonder ! 
 
 The day — the Monday — arrived. 
 
 If the morning had been made to order, 
 it couldn't have been better adapted to the 
 purpose. They never showed a better fog 
 in London on Lord Mayor's day, than en- 
 wrapped the town of Mudfog on that event- 
 ful occasion. It had risen slowly and surely 
 from the green and stagnant water with the 
 first light of morning, until it reached a little 
 above the lamp-post tops ; and there it had 
 stopped, with a sleepy, sluggish obstinacy, 
 which bade defiance to the sun, who had got 
 up very blood-shot about the eyes, as if he 
 had been at a drinking-party over night, and 
 was doing his day's work with .the worst pos- 
 sible grace. The thick damp mist hung over 
 the town like a huge gauze curtain. All was 
 dim and dismal. The church steeples had 
 bidden a temporary adieu to the world be- 
 
Ptiblic Life of Mr. Tulmmble. 25 
 
 low ; and every object of lesser importance — 
 houses, barns, hedges, trees, and barges — had 
 all taken the veil. 
 
 The church-clock struck one. A cracked 
 trumpet from the front garden of Mudfog 
 Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some 
 asthmatic person had coughed into it acci- 
 dentally ; the gate flew open, and out came a 
 gentleman, on a moist-sugar coloured charger, 
 intended to represent a herald, but bearing a 
 much stronger resemblance to a court-card on 
 horseback. This was one of the Circus 
 people, who always came down to Mudfog 
 at that time of the year, and who had been 
 engaged by Nicholas Tulrumble expressly 
 for the occasion. There was the horse, 
 whisking his tail about, balancing himself 
 on his hind-legs, and flourishing away with 
 his fore-feet, in a manner which would have 
 gone to the hearts and souls of any reason- 
 able crowd. But a Mudfog crowd never was 
 a reasonable one, and in all probability never 
 
26 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 will be. Instead of scattering the very fog 
 with their shouts, as they ought most indubi- 
 tably to have done, and were fully intended 
 to do, by Nicholas Tulrumble, they no sooner 
 recognized the herald, than they began to 
 growl forth the most unqualified disappro- 
 bation at the bare notion of his riding like 
 any other man. If he had come out on his 
 head indeed, or jumping through a hoop, or 
 flying through a red-hot drum, or even 
 standing on one leg with his other foot in 
 his mouth, they might have had something 
 to say to him ; but for a professional gentle- 
 man to sit astride in the saddle, with his feet 
 in the stirrups, was rather too good a joke. 
 So, the herald was a decided failure, and the 
 crowd hooted with great energy, as he 
 pranced ingloriously away. 
 
 On the procession came. We are afraid 
 to say how many supernumeraries there 
 were, in striped shirts and black velvet caps, 
 to imitate the London watermen, or how 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 27 
 
 many base imitations of running-footmen, or 
 how many banners, which, owing to the 
 heaviness of the atmosphere, could by no 
 means be prevailed on to display their in- 
 scriptions : still less do we feel disposed to 
 relate how the men who played the wind 
 instruments, looking up into the sky (we 
 mean the fog) with musical fervour, walked 
 through pools of water and hillocks of mud, 
 till they covered the powdered heads of the 
 running-footmen aforesaid with splashes, that 
 looked curious, but not ornamental ; or how 
 the barrel-organ performer put on the wrong 
 stop, and played one tune while the band 
 played another ; or how the horses, being 
 used to the arena, and not to the streets, 
 would stand still and dance, instead of going 
 on and prancing ; — all of which are matters 
 which might be dilated upon to great 
 advantage, but which we have not the least 
 intention of dilating upon, notwithstanding. 
 Oh ! it was a grand and beautiful sight to 
 
28 Public Life of Mr, Tulrumble, 
 
 behold a corporation in glass coaches, pro- 
 vided at the sole cost and charge of Nicholas 
 Tulrumble, coming rolling along, like a 
 funeral out of mourning, and to watch the 
 attempts the corporation made to look great 
 and solemn, when Nicholas Tulrumble him- 
 self, in the four-wheel chaise, with the tall 
 postilion, rolled out after them, with Mr. 
 Jennings on one side to look like a chaplain, 
 and a supernumerary on the other, with an 
 old life-guardsman's sabre, to imitate the 
 sword-bearer; and to see the tears rolling 
 down the faces of the mob as they screamed 
 with merriment. This was beautiful ! and 
 so was the appearance of Mrs. Tulrumble 
 and son, as they bowed with grave dignity 
 out of their coach-window to all the dirty 
 faces that were laughing around them : but 
 it is not even with this that we have to do, 
 but with the sudden stopping of the pro- 
 cession at another blast of the trumpet, 
 whereat, and whereupon, a profound silence 
 
, Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 29 
 
 ensued, and all eyes were turned towards 
 Mudfog Hall, in the confidant anticipation of 
 some new wonder. 
 
 " They won't laugh now, Mr. Jennings," 
 said Nicholas Tulrumble. 
 
 " I think not, sir," said Mr. Jennings. 
 
 " See how eager they look," said Nicholas 
 Tulrumble. " Aha ! the laugh will be on 
 our side now ; eh, Mr. Jennings ? " 
 
 " No ddubt of that, sir," replied Mr. Jen- 
 nings; and Nicholas Tulrumble, in a state of 
 pleasurable excitement, stood up in the four- 
 wheel chaise, and telegraphed gratification to 
 the Mayoress behind. 
 
 While all this was going forward, Ned 
 Twigger had descended into the kitchen of 
 Mudfog Hall for the purpose of indulging 
 the servants with a private view of the curi- 
 osity that was to burst upon the town ; and, 
 somehow or other, the footman was so com- 
 panionable, and the housemaid so kind, and 
 the cook so friendly, that he could not resist 
 
30 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 the offer of the first-mentioned to sit down 
 and take something — just to drink success to 
 master in. 
 
 So, down Ned Twigger sat himself in his 
 brass livery on the top of the kitchen-table ; 
 and in a mug of something strong, paid for 
 by the unconscious Nicholas Tulrumble, and 
 provided by the companionable footman, 
 drank success to the Mayor and his procession; 
 and, as Ned laid by his helmet to imbibe the 
 something strong, the companionable footman 
 put it on his own head, to the immeasurable 
 and unrecordable delight of the cook and 
 housemaid. The companionable footman was 
 very facetious to Ned, and Ned was very 
 gallant to the cook and housemaid by turns. 
 They were all very cosy and comfortable ; 
 and the something strong went briskly round. 
 
 At last Ned Twigger was loudly called 
 for, by the procession people : and, having 
 had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated 
 manner, by the companionable footman, and 
 
Public Life of Mr. Ttdrtcmble. 3 1 
 
 the kind housemaid, and the friendly cook, 
 he walked gravely forth, and appeared before 
 the multitude. 
 
 The crowd roared — it was not with won- 
 der, it was not with surprise ; it was most 
 decidedly and unquestionably with laughter. 
 
 " What ! " said Mr. Tulrumble, starting 
 up in the four-wheel chaise. " Laughing ? 
 If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, 
 they'd laugh when their own fathers were 
 dying. Why doesn't he go into his place, 
 Mr. Jennings ? What's he rolling down 
 towards us for ? he has no business here ! " 
 
 "I am afraid, sir " faltered Mr. Jen- 
 nings. 
 
 " Afraid of what, sir ? " said Nicholas Tul- 
 rumble, looking up into the secretary's face. 
 
 " I am afraid he's drunk, sir ; " replied Mr. 
 Jennings. 
 
 Nicholas Tulrumble took one look at the 
 extraordinary figure that was bearing down 
 upon them ; and then, clasping his secretary 
 
32 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 by the arm, uttered an audible groan in 
 anguish of spirit. 
 
 It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Twigger 
 having full licence to demand a single glass 
 of rum on the putting on of every piece of 
 the armour, got, by some means or other, 
 rather out of his calculation in the hurry and 
 confusion of preparation, and drank about 
 four glasses to a piece instead of one, not to 
 mention the something strong which went on 
 the top of it. Whether the brass armour 
 checked the natural flow of perspiration, and 
 thus prevented the spirit from evaporating, 
 we are not scientific enough to know ; but, 
 whatever the cause was, Mr. Twigger no 
 sooner found himself outside the gate of 
 Mudfog Hall, than he also found himself in 
 a very considerable state of intoxication ; and 
 hence his extraordinary style of progressing. 
 This was bad enough, but, as if fate and 
 fortune had conspired against Nicholas 
 Tulrumble, Mr. Twigger, not having been 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tttlrumble. 33 
 
 penitent for a good calendar month, took it 
 into his head to be most especially and par- 
 ticularly sentimental, just when his repentance 
 could have been most conveniently dispensed 
 with. Immense tears were rolling down his 
 cheeks, and he was vainly endeavouring to 
 conceal his grief by applying to his eyes a 
 blue cotton pocket-handkerchief with white 
 spots, — an article not strictly in keeping with 
 a suit of armour some three hundred years 
 old, or thereabouts. 
 
 " Twigger, you villain!" said Nicholas 
 Tulrumble, quite forgetting his dignity, " go 
 back." 
 
 " Never," said Ned. " I'm a miserable 
 wretch. I'll never leave you." 
 
 The by-standers of course received this 
 declaration with acclamations of " That's 
 right, Ned; don't!" 
 
 " I don't intend it," said Ned, with all the 
 obstinacy of a very tipsy man. " I'm very 
 unhappy. I'm the wretched father of an 
 
 3 
 
34 Public Life of Mr. Tulrttmble. 
 
 unfortunate family; but I am very faith- 
 ful, sir. I'll never leave you." Having 
 reiterated this obliging promise, Ned pro- 
 ceeded in broken words to harangue the 
 crowd upon the number of years he had 
 lived in Mudfog, the excessive respectability 
 of his character, and other topics of the like 
 nature. 
 
 "Here! will anybody lead him away?" 
 said Nicholas: "if they'll call on me after- 
 wards, I'll reward them well." 
 
 Two or three men stepped forward, with 
 the view of bearing Ned off, when the secre- 
 tary interposed. 
 
 " Take care ! take care ! " said Mr. Jen- 
 nings. " I beg your pardon, sir ; but they'd 
 better not go too near him, because, if he 
 falls over, hell certainly crush somebody." 
 
 At this hint the crowd retired on all sides 
 to a very respectful distance, and left Ned, 
 like the Duke of Devonshire, in a little circle 
 of his own. 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 35 
 
 " But, Mr. Jennings," said Nicholas Tul- 
 rumble, " he'll be suffocated." 
 
 u I'm very sorry for it, sir," replied Mr. 
 Jennings; " but nobody can get that armour 
 off, without his own assistance. I'm quite 
 certain of it from the way he put it on." 
 
 Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his 
 helmeted head, in a manner that might have 
 touched a heart of stone ; but the crowd had 
 not hearts of stone, and they laughed heartily. 
 
 " Dear me, Mr. Jennings," said Nicholas, 
 turning pale at the possibility of Neds being 
 smothered in his antique costume — " Dear 
 me, Mr. Jennings, can nothing be done with 
 him ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all," replied Ned, " nothing 
 at all. Gentlemen, I'm an unhappy wretch. 
 I'm a body, gentlemen, in. a brass coffin." 
 At this poetical idea of his own conjuring up, 
 Ned cried so much that the people began to 
 get sympathetic, and to ask what Nicholas 
 Tulrumble meant by putting a man into such 
 
36 ' Public Life of Mr. Tttlrumble. 
 
 a machine as that ; and one individual in a 
 hairy waistcoat like the top of a trunk, who 
 had previously expressed his opinion that if 
 Ned hadn't been a poor man, Nicholas 
 wouldn't have dared do it, hinted at the pro- 
 priety of breaking the four-wheel chaise, or 
 Nicholas's head, or both, which last compound 
 proposition the crowd seemed to consider a 
 very good notion. 
 
 It was not acted upon, however, for it 
 had hardly been broached, when Ned Twig- 
 ger's wife made her appearance abruptly in 
 the little circle before noticed, and Ned no 
 sooner caught a glimpse of her face and form, 
 than from the mere force of habit he set off 
 towards his home just as fast as his legs could 
 carry him ; and that was not very quick in 
 the present instance either, for, however 
 ready they might have been to carry him, 
 they couldn't get on very well under the 
 brass armour. So, Mrs. Twigger had plenty 
 of time to denounce Nicholas Tulrumble to 
 
Ptiblic Life of Mr. Ttdrmjtble. . 37 
 
 his face : to express her opinion that he was 
 a decided monster ; and to intimate that, if 
 her ill-used husband sustained any personal 
 damage from the brass armour, she would 
 have the law of Nicholas Tulrumble for 
 manslaughter. When she had said all this 
 with due vehemence, she posted after Ned, 
 who was dragging himself along as best he 
 could, and deploring his unhappiness in most 
 dismal tones. 
 
 What a wailing and screaming Ned's 
 children raised when he got home at last ! 
 Mrs, Twigger tried to undo the armour, first 
 in one place, and then in another, but she 
 couldn't manage it; so she tumbled Ned into 
 bed, helmet, armour, gauntlets, and all. Such 
 a creaking as the bedstead made, under Ned's 
 weight in his new suit! It didn't break 
 down though ; and there Ned lay, like the 
 anonymous vessel in the Bay of Biscay, till 
 next day, drinking barley-water, and looking 
 miserable : and every time he groaned, his 
 
38 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 good lady said it served him right, which was 
 all the consolation Ned Twigger got. 
 
 Nicholas Tulrumble and the gorgeous 
 procession went on together to the town- 
 hall, amid the hisses and groans of all the 
 spectators, who had suddenly taken it into 
 their heads to consider poor Ned a martyr. 
 Nicholas was formally installed in his new 
 office, in acknowledgment of which ceremony 
 he delivered himself of a speech, composed 
 by the secretary, which was very long, and no 
 doubt very good, only the noise of the people 
 outside prevented anybody from hearing it, 
 but Nicholas Tulrumble himself. After which, 
 the procession got back to Mudfog Hall any 
 how it could ; and Nicholas and the corpora- 
 tion sat down to dinner. 
 
 But the dinner was flat, and Nicholas was 
 disappointed. They were such dull sleepy 
 old fellows, that corporation. Nicholas made 
 quite as long speeches as the Lord Mayor of 
 London had done, nay, he said the very same 
 
P lib lie Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 39 
 
 things that the Lord Mayor of London had 
 said, and the deuce a cheer the corporation 
 gave him. There was only one man in the 
 party who was thoroughly awake ; and he 
 was insolent and called him Nick. Nick ! 
 What would be the consequence, thought 
 Nicholas, of anybody presuming to call the 
 Lord Mayor of London "Nick!" He 
 should like to know what the sword-bearer 
 would say to that ; or the recorder, or the 
 toast-master, or any other of the great officers 
 of the city. They'd nick him. 
 
 But these were not the worst of Nicholas 
 Tulrumble's doings. If they had been, he 
 might have remained a Mayor to this day, 
 and have talked till he lost his voice. He 
 contracted a relish for statistics, and got 
 philosophical ; and the statistics and the 
 philosophy together, led him into an act 
 which increased his unpopularity and hastened 
 his downfall. 
 
 At the very end of the Mudfog High- 
 
40 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 street, and abutting on the river-side, stands 
 the Jolly Boatmen, an old-fashioned low- 
 roofed, bay-windowed house, with a bar, 
 kitchen, and tap-room all in one, and a 
 large fire-place with a kettle to correspond, 
 round which the working men have congre- 
 gated time out of mind on a winter's night, 
 refreshed by draughts of good strong beer, 
 and cheered by the sounds of a fiddle and 
 tambourine : the Jolly Boatmen having been 
 duly licensed by the Mayor and corporation, 
 to scrape the fiddle and thumb the tambourine 
 from time, whereof the memory of the oldest 
 inhabitants goeth not to the contrary. Now 
 Nicholas Tulrumble had been reading pam- 
 phlets on crime, and parliamentary reports, — 
 or had made the secretary read them to him, 
 which is the same thing in effect, — and he at 
 once perceived that this fiddle and tambourine 
 must have done more to demoralize Mudfog, 
 than any other operating causes that inge- 
 nuity could imagine. So he read up for the 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 41 
 
 subject, and determined to come out on the 
 corporation with a burst, the very next time 
 the licence was applied for. 
 
 The licensing day came, and the red- 
 faced landlord of the Jolly Boatmen walked 
 into the town-hall, looking as jolly as need 
 be, having actually put on an extra fiddle for 
 that night, to commemorate the anniversary 
 of the Jolly Boatmen's music licence. It was 
 applied for in due form, and was just about 
 to be granted as a matter of course, when up 
 rose Nicholas Tulrumble, and drowned the 
 astonished corporation in a torrent of elo- 
 quence. He descanted in glowing terms 
 upon the increasing depravity of his native 
 town of Mudfog, and the excesses committed 
 by its population. Then, he related how 
 shocked he had been, to see barrels of beer 
 sliding down into the cellar of the Jolly 
 Boatmen week after week ; and how he had 
 sat at a window opposite the Jolly Boat- 
 men for two days together, to count the 
 
42 Public Life of Mr. Tttlrumble. 
 
 people who went in for beer between the 
 hours of twelve and one o'clock alone — which, 
 by-the-bye, was the time at which the great 
 majority of the Mudfog people dined. Then, 
 he went on to state, how the number of 
 people who came out with beer-jugs, averaged 
 twenty-one in five minutes, which, being mul- 
 tiplied by twelve, gave two hundred and fifty- 
 two people with beer-jugs in an hour, and mul- 
 tiplied again by fifteen (the number of hours 
 during which the house was open daily) 
 yielded three thousand seven hundred and 
 eighty people with beer-jugs per day, or 
 twenty-six thousand four hundred and sixty 
 people with beer-jugs, per week. Then he 
 proceeded to show that a tambourine and 
 moral degradation were synonymous terms, 
 and a fiddle and vicious propensities wholly 
 inseparable. All these arguments he strength- 
 ened and demonstrated by frequent references 
 to a large book with a blue cover, and sundry 
 quotations from the Middlesex magistrates ; 
 
Public Life of Mr. Ttdrumble. 43 
 
 and in the end, the corporation, who were 
 posed with the figures, and sleepy with the 
 speech, and sadly in want of dinner into the 
 bargain, yielded the palm to Nicholas Tul- 
 rumble, and refused the music licence to the 
 Jolly Boatmen. 
 
 But although Nicholas triumphed, his 
 triumph was short. He carried on the war 
 against beer-jugs and fiddles, forgetting the 
 time when he was glad to drink out of the 
 one, and to dance to the other, till the people 
 hated, and his old friends shunned him. He 
 grew tired of the lonely magnificence of 
 Mudfog Hall, and his heart yearned to- 
 wards the Lighterman's Arms. He wished 
 he had never set up as a public man, and 
 sighed for the good old times of the coal- 
 shop, and the chimney corner. » 
 
 At length old Nicholas, being thoroughly 
 miserable, took heart of grace, paid the 
 secretary a quarter's wages in advance, and 
 packed him off to London by the next 
 
44 Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 
 
 coach. Having taken this step, he put his 
 hat on his head, and his pride in his 
 pocket, and walked down to the old room at 
 the Lighterman's Arms. There were only 
 two of the old fellows there, and they 
 looked coldly on Nicholas as he proffered 
 his hand. 
 
 " Are you going to put down pipes, Mr. 
 Tulrumble ? " said one. 
 
 " Or trace the progress of crime to 'bacca?" 
 growled another. 
 
 " Neither," replied Nicholas Tulrumble, 
 shaking hands with them both, whether they 
 would or not. " I've come down to say that 
 I'm very sorry for having made a fool of my- 
 self, and that I hope you'll give me up, the 
 old chair, again." 
 
 The old fellows opened their eyes, and 
 three or four more old fellows opened the 
 door, to whom Nicholas, with tears in his 
 eyes, thrust out his hand too, and told the 
 same story. They raised a shout of joy, that 
 
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble. 45 
 
 made the bells in the ancient church-tower 
 vibrate again, and wheeling the old chair into 
 the warm corner, thrust old Nicholas down 
 into it, and ordered in the very largest-sized 
 bowl of hot punch, with an unlimited number 
 of pipes, directly. 
 
 The next day, the Jolly Boatmen got the 
 licence, and the next night, old Nicholas and 
 Ned Twigger's wife led off a dance to the 
 music of the fiddle and tambourine, the tone 
 of which seemed mightily improved by a little 
 rest, for they never had played so merrily 
 before. Ned Twigger was in the very height 
 of his glory, and he danced hornpipes, and 
 balanced chairs on his chin, and straws on his 
 nose, till the whole company, including the 
 corporation, were in raptures of admiration 
 at the brilliancy of his acquirements. 
 
 Mr. Tulrumble, junior, couldn't make up 
 his mind to be anything but magnificent, so 
 he went up to London and drew bills on his 
 father ; and when he had overdrawn, and got 
 
46 Public Life of Mr. Tulrwmble. 
 
 into debt, he grew penitent, and came home 
 again. 
 
 As to old Nicholas, he kept his word, and 
 having had six weeks of public life, never tried 
 it any more. He went to sleep in the town- 
 hall at the very next meeting ; and, in full 
 proof of his sincerity, has requested us to 
 write this faithful narrative. We wish it 
 could have the effect of reminding the Tul- 
 rumbles of another sphere, that puffed-up 
 conceit is not dignity, and that snarling at the 
 little pleasures they were once glad to enjoy, 
 because they would rather forget the times 
 when they were of lower station, renders 
 them objects of contempt and ridicule. 
 
 This is the first time we have published 
 any of our gleanings from this particular 
 source. Perhaps, at some future period, we 
 may venture to open the chronicles of 
 Mudfog. 
 
FULL EEPOKT OF THE EIKST MEETING 
 OE THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION 
 
 FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING. 
 
 We have made the most unparalleled and 
 extraordinary exertions to place before our 
 readers a complete and accurate account of 
 the proceedings at the late grand meeting of 
 the Mudfog Association, holden in the town 
 of Mudfog ; it affords us great happiness to 
 lay the result before them, in the shape of 
 various communications received from our 
 able, talented, and graphic correspondent, ex- 
 pressly sent down for the purpose, who has 
 immortalized us, himself, Mudfog, and the 
 association, all at one and the same time. 
 We have been, indeed, for some days unable 
 to determine who will transmit the greatest 
 
48 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 name to posterity ; ourselves, who sent our 
 correspondent down; our correspondent, who 
 wrote an account of the matter ; or the asso- 
 ciation, who gave our correspondent some- 
 thing to write about. We rather incline to 
 the opinion that we are the greatest man of 
 the party, inasmuch as the notion of an exclu- 
 sive and authentic report originated with us; 
 this may be prejudice : it may arise from a 
 prepossession on our part in our own favour. 
 Be it so. We have no doubt that every gen- 
 tleman concerned in this mighty assemblage 
 is troubled with the same complaint in a 
 greater or less degree; and it is a consolation 
 to us to know that we have at least this feel- 
 ing in common with the great scientific stars, 
 the brilliant and extraordinary luminaries, 
 whose speculations we record. 
 
 We give our correspondent's letters in 
 the order in which they reached us. Any 
 attempt at amalgamating them into one beau- 
 tiful whole, would only destroy that glowing 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 49 
 
 tone, that dash of wildness, and rich vein of 
 picturesque interest, which pervade them 
 throughout. 
 
 "Mudfog, Monday night, seven o'clock. 
 " We are in a state of great excitement 
 here. Nothing is spoken of, but the approach- 
 ing meeting of the association. The inn- 
 doors are thronged with waiters anxiously 
 looking for the expected arrivals; and the 
 numerous bills which are wafered up in the 
 windows of private houses, intimating that 
 there are beds to let within, give the streets 
 a very animated and cheerful appearance, the 
 wafers being of a great variety of colours, 
 and the monotony of printed inscriptions 
 being relieved by every possible size and style 
 of hand-writing. It is confidently rumoured 
 that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy 
 have engaged three beds and a sitting-room 
 at the Pig and Tinder-box. I give you the 
 rumour as it has reached me ; but I cannot, 
 as yet, vouch for its accuracy. The moment 
 
 4 
 
50 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 I have been enabled to obtain any certain 
 information upon this interesting point, you 
 may depend upon receiving it." 
 
 " Half -past seven. 
 " I have just returned from a personal 
 interview with the landlord of the Pig and 
 Tinder-box. He speaks confidently of the 
 probability of Professors Snore, Doze, and 
 Wheezy taking up their residence at his 
 house during the sitting of the association, 
 but denies that the beds have been yet 
 engaged ; in which representation he is con- 
 firmed by the chambermaid, — a girl of artless 
 manners, and interesting appearance. The 
 boots denies that it is at all likely that Pro- 
 fessors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy will put up 
 here ; but I have reason to believe that this 
 man has been suborned by the proprietor of 
 the Original Pig, which is the opposition 
 hotel. Amidst such conflicting testimony it 
 is difficult to arrive at the real truth ; but you 
 may depend upon receiving authentic infor- 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 5 1 
 
 mation upon this point the moment the fact 
 is ascertained. The excitement still con- 
 tinues. A boy fell through the window of 
 the pastrycook's shop at the corner of the 
 High-street about half an hour ago, which has 
 occasioned much confusion. The general im- 
 pression is, that it was an accident. Pray 
 heaven it may prove so ! " 
 
 " Tuesday, noon. 
 
 " At an early hour this morning the bells 
 of all the churches struck seven o'clock ; the 
 effect of which, in the present lively state of 
 the town, was extremely singular. While I 
 was at breakfast, a yellow gig, drawn by a 
 dark grey horse, with a patch of white over 
 his right eyelid, proceeded at a rapid pace in 
 the direction of the Original Pig stables; it is 
 currently reported that this gentleman has 
 arrived here for the purpose of attending the 
 association, and, from what I have heard, I 
 consider it extremely probable, although 
 nothing decisive is yet known regarding him. 
 
52 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 You may conceive the anxiety with which we 
 are all looking forward to the arrival of the 
 four o'clock coach this afternoon. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the excited state of the 
 populace, no outrage has yet been committed, 
 owing to the admirable discipline and dis- 
 cretion of the police, who are nowhere to be 
 seen. A barrel-organ is playing opposite my 
 window, and groups of people, offering fish 
 and vegetables for sale, parade the streets. 
 With these exceptions everything is quiet, 
 and I trust will continue so." 
 
 "Five o'clock. 
 
 " It is now ascertained, beyond all doubt, 
 that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy will 
 not repair to the Pig and Tinder-box, but 
 have actually engaged apartments at the 
 Original Pig. This intelligence is exclusive ; 
 and I leave you and your readers to draw 
 their own inferences from it. Why Professor 
 Wheezy, of all people in the world, should 
 repair to the Original Pig in preference to 
 
of the Mitdfog Association. 53 
 
 the Pig and Tinder-box, it is not easy to 
 conceive. The professor is a man who should 
 be above all such petty feelings. Some people 
 here openly impute treachery, and a distinct 
 breach of faith to Professors Snore and Doze ; 
 while others, again, are disposed to acquit 
 them of any culpability in the transaction, 
 and to insinuate that the blame rests solely 
 with Professor Wheezy. I own that I incline 
 to the latter opinion ; and although it gives 
 me great pain to speak in terms of censure 
 or disapprobation of a man of such transcen- 
 dent genius and acquirements, still I am 
 bound to say that, if my suspicions be well 
 founded, and if all the reports which have 
 reached my ears be true, I really do not well 
 know what to make of the matter. 
 
 " Mr. Slug, so celebrated for his statistical 
 researches, arrived this afternoon by the four 
 o'clock stage. His complexion is a dark 
 purple, and he has a habit of sighing con- 
 stantly. He looked extremely well, and 
 
54 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 appeared in high health and spirits. Mr. 
 Woodensconse also came down in the same 
 conveyance. The distinguished gentleman 
 was fast asleep on his arrival, and I am in- 
 formed by the guard that he had been so the 
 whole way. He was, no doubt, preparing for 
 his approaching fatigues ; but what gigantic 
 visions must those be that flit through the 
 brain of such a man when his body is in a 
 state of torpidity ! 
 
 " The influx of visitors increases every 
 moment. I am told (I know not how truly) 
 that two post-chaises have arrived at the 
 Original Pig within the last half-hour, and I 
 myself observed a wheelbarrow, containing 
 three carpet bags and a bundle, entering the 
 yard of the Pig and Tinder-box no longer 
 ago than five minutes since. The people are 
 still quietly pursuing their ordinary occupa- 
 tions ; but there is a wildness in their eyes, 
 and an unwonted rigidity in the muscles of 
 their countenances, which shows to the ob- 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 5 5 
 
 servant spectator that their expectations are 
 strained to the very utmost pitch. I fear, 
 unless some very extraordinary arrivals take 
 place to-night, that consequences may arise 
 from this popular ferment, which every man 
 of sense and feeling would deplore." 
 
 " Twenty mimctes past six. 
 " I have just heard that the boy who fell 
 through the pastrycook's window last night 
 has died of the fright. He was suddenly 
 called upon to pay three and sixpence for the 
 damage done, and his constitution, it seems, 
 was not strong enough to bear up against the 
 shock. The inquest, it is said, will be held 
 
 to-morrow. ,, 
 
 " Three-quarters past seven. 
 
 " Professors Muff and Nogo have just 
 driven up to the hotel door ; they at once 
 ordered dinner with great condescension. We 
 are all very much delighted with the urbanity 
 of their manners, and the ease with which 
 they adapt themselves to the forms and cere- 
 
56 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 monies of ordinary life. Immediately on 
 their arrival they sent for the head waiter, 
 and privately requested him to purchase a 
 live dog, — as cheap a one as he could meet 
 with, — and to send him up after dinner, with 
 a pie-board, a knife and fork, and a clean 
 plate. It is conjectured that some experi- 
 ments will be tried upon the dog to-night ; if 
 any particulars should transpire, I will forward 
 them by express. ,, 
 
 " Half-past eight, 
 u The animal has been procured. He is a 
 pug-dog, of rather intelligent appearance, in 
 good condition, and with very short legs. He 
 has been tied to a curtain-peg in a dark room, 
 and is howling dreadfully." 
 
 " Ten minutes to nine. 
 " The dog has just been rung for. With 
 an instinct which would appear almost the 
 result of reason, the sagacious animal seized 
 the waiter by the calf of the leg when he 
 approached to take him, and made a despe- 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 5 7 
 
 rate, though ineffectual resistance. I have 
 not been able to procure admission to the 
 apartment occupied by the scientific gentle- 
 men ; but, judging from the sounds which 
 reached my ears when I stood upon the land- 
 ing-place outside the door, just now, I should 
 be disposed to say that the dog had retreated 
 growling beneath some article of furniture, 
 and was keeping the professors at bay. This 
 conjecture is confirmed by the testimony of 
 the ostler, who, after peeping through the 
 keyhole, assures me that he distinctly saw 
 Professor Nogo on his knees, holding forth a 
 small bottle of prussic acid, to which the 
 animal, who was crouched beneath an arm- 
 chair, obstinately declined to smell. You 
 cannot imagine the feverish state of irritation 
 we are in, lest the interests of science should 
 be sacrificed to the prejudices of a brute 
 creature, who is not endowed with sufficient 
 sense to foresee the incalculable benefits 
 which the whole human race may derive 
 
58 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 from so very slight a concession on his 
 part." 
 
 " Nine d clock. 
 
 " The dog's tail and ears have been sent 
 down stairs to be washed ; from which cir- 
 cumstance we infer that the animal is no 
 more. His forelegs have been delivered to 
 the boots to be brushed, which strengthens 
 the supposition/' 
 
 u Half after ten. 
 
 " My feelings are so overpowered by 
 what has taken place in the course of the last 
 hour and a half, that I have scarcely strength 
 to detail the rapid succession of events 
 which have quite bewildered all those who 
 are cognizant of their occurrence. It ap- 
 pears that the pug-dog mentioned in my last 
 was surreptitiously obtained, — stolen, in fact, 
 — by some person attached to the stable 
 department, from an unmarried lady resident 
 in this town. Frantic on discovering the 
 loss of her favourite, the lady rushed dis- 
 
of the Mudfog A ssociation. 5 9 
 
 tractedly into the street, calling in the most 
 heart-rending and pathetic manner upon the 
 passengers to restore her, her Augustus, — 
 for so the deceased was named, in affection- 
 ate remembrance of a former lover of his 
 mistress, to whom he bore a striking per- 
 sonal resemblance, which renders the circum- 
 stances additionally affecting. I am not yet 
 in a condition to inform you what circum- 
 stance induced the bereaved lady to direct 
 her steps to the hotel which had witnessed 
 the last struggles of her protdgd. I can only 
 state that she arrived there, at the very 
 instant when his detached members were 
 passing through the passage on a small tray. 
 Her shrieks still reverberate in my ears ! I 
 grieve to say that the expressive features of 
 Professor Muff were much scratched and 
 lacerated by the injured lady; and that 
 Professor Nogo, besides sustaining several 
 severe bites, has lost some handfuls of hair 
 from the same cause. It must be some 
 
60 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 consolation to these gentlemen to know that 
 their ardent attachment to scientific pursuits 
 has alone occasioned these unpleasant con- 
 sequences ; for which the sympathy of a 
 grateful country will sufficiently reward them. 
 The unfortunate lady remains at the Pig and 
 Tinder-box, and up to this time is reported in 
 a very precarious state. 
 
 " I need scarcely tell you that this un- 
 looked-for catastrophe has cast a damp and 
 gloom upon us in the midst of our exhilara- 
 tion ; natural in any case, but greatly en- 
 hanced in this, by the amiable qualities of 
 the deceased animal, who appears to have 
 been much and deservedly respected by the 
 whole of his acquaintance." 
 
 " Twelve d clock. 
 
 " I take the last opportunity before seal- 
 ing my parcel to inform you that the boy who 
 fell through the pastrycook's window is not 
 dead, as was universally believed, but alive 
 and well. The report appears to have had 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 6 1 
 
 its origin in his mysterious disappearance. 
 He was found half an hour since on the pre- 
 mises of a sweet-stuff maker, where a raffle 
 had been announced for a second-hand seal- 
 skin cap and a tambourine ; and where — a 
 sufficient number of members not having 
 been obtained at first — he had patiently waited 
 until the list was completed. This fortunate 
 discovery has in some degree restored our 
 gaiety and cheerfulness. It is proposed to 
 get up a subscription for him without 
 delay. 
 
 " Everybody is nervously anxious to see 
 what to-morrow will bring forth. If any one 
 should arrive in the course of the night, I 
 have left strict directions to be called imme- 
 diately. I should have sat up, indeed, but 
 the agitating events of this day have been too 
 much for me. 
 
 " No news yet of either of the Profes- 
 sors Snore, Doze, or Wheezy. It is very 
 strange ! " 
 
6 2 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 " Wednesday afternoon. 
 " All is now over ; and, upon one point 
 at least, I am at length enabled to set the 
 minds of your readers at rest. The three 
 professors arrived at ten minutes after two 
 o'clock, and,, instead of taking up their quar- 
 ters at the Original Pig, as it was universally 
 understood in the course of yesterday that 
 they would assuredly have done, drove 
 straight to the Pig and Tinder-box, where 
 they threw off the mask at once, and openly 
 announced their intention of remaining. 
 Professor Wheezy may reconcile this very 
 extraordinary conduct with his notions of 
 fair and equitable dealing, but I would re- 
 commend Professor Wheezy to be cautious 
 how he presumes too far upon his well-earned 
 reputation. How such a man as Professor 
 Snore, or, which is still more extraordinary, 
 such an individual as Professor Doze, can 
 quietly allow himself to be mixed up with 
 such proceedings as these, you will naturally 
 
of the Mudfog Association, 63 
 
 inquire. Upon this head, rumour is silent ; 
 I have my speculations, but forbear to give 
 utterance to them just now." 
 
 " Four o'clock. 
 
 " The town is filling fast ; eighteenpence 
 has been offered for a bed and refused. 
 Several gentlemen were under the necessity 
 last night of sleeping in the brick fields, and 
 on the steps of doors, for which they were 
 taken before the magistrates in a body 
 this morning, and committed to prison as 
 vagrants for various terms. One of these 
 persons I understand to be a highly-respect- 
 able tinker, of great practical skill, who had 
 forwarded a paper to the President of Section 
 D. Mechanical Science, on the construction 
 of pipkins with copper bottoms and safety- 
 valves, of which report speaks highly. The 
 incarceration of this gentleman is greatly to 
 be regretted, as his absence will preclude any 
 discussion on the subject. 
 
 " The bills are being taken down in all 
 
64 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 directions, and lodgings are being secured on 
 almost any terms. I have heard of fifteen 
 shillings a week for two rooms, exclusive of 
 coals and attendance, but I can scarcely be- 
 lieve it. The excitement is dreadful. I was 
 informed this morning that the civil authori- 
 ties, apprehensive of some outbreak of popu- 
 lar feeling, had commanded a recruiting ser- 
 geant and two corporals to be under arms ; 
 and that, with the view of not irritating the 
 people unnecessarily by their presence, they 
 had been requested to take up their position 
 before daybreak in a turnpike, distant about 
 a quarter of a mile from the town. The 
 vigour and promptness of these measures 
 cannot be too highly extolled. 
 
 " Intelligence has just been brought me, 
 that an elderly female, in a state of inebriety, 
 has declared in the open street her intention 
 to ' do ' for Mr. Slug. Some statistical re- 
 turns compiled by that gentleman, relative to 
 the consumption of raw spirituous liquors in 
 
of the Mttdfog Association. 65 
 
 this place, are supposed to be the cause of 
 the wretch's animosity. It is added that this 
 declaration was loudly cheered by a crowd of 
 persons who had assembled on the spot ; and 
 that one man had the boldness to designate 
 Mr. Slug aloud by the opprobrious epithet of 
 u Stick-in-the-mud ! " It is earnestly to be 
 hoped that now, when the moment has 
 arrived for their interference, the magistrates 
 will not shrink from the exercise of that 
 power which is vested in them by the consti- 
 tution of our common country.'' 
 
 " Half-past ten. 
 " The disturbance, I am happy to inform 
 you, has been completely quelled, and the 
 ringleader taken into custody. She had a 
 pail of cold water thrown over her, previous 
 to being locked up, and expresses great con- 
 trition and uneasiness. We are all in a fever 
 of anticipation about to-morrow ; but, now 
 that we are within a few hours of the meeting 
 of the association, and at last enjoy the proud 
 
66 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 consciousness of having its illustrious mem- 
 bers amongst us, I trust and hope everything 
 may go off peaceably. I shall send you a full 
 report of to-morrow's proceedings by the 
 
 night coach." 
 
 " Eleven d clock. 
 
 " I open my letter to say that nothing 
 
 whatever has occurred since I folded it up." 
 
 " Thursday. 
 " The sun rose this morning at the usual 
 hour. I did not observe anything particular 
 in the aspect of the glorious planet, except 
 that he appeared to me (it might have been 
 a delusion of my heightened fancy) to shine 
 with more than common brilliancy, and to 
 shed a refulgent lustre upon the town, such 
 as I had never observed before. This is the 
 more extraordinary, as the sky was perfectly 
 cloudless, and the atmosphere peculiarly fine. 
 At half-past nine o'clock the general com- 
 mittee assembled, with the last year's presi- 
 dent in the chair. The report of the council 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 6 7 
 
 was read ; and one passage, which stated 
 that the council had corresponded with no 
 less than three thousand five hundred and 
 seventy-one persons, (all of whom paid 
 their own postage,) on no fewer than seven 
 thousand two hundred and forty-three topics, 
 was received with a degree of enthusiasm 
 which no efforts could suppress. The vari- 
 ous committees and sections having been 
 appointed, and the more formal business trans- 
 acted, the great proceedings of the meeting 
 commenced at eleven o'clock precisely. I 
 had the happiness of occupying a most eli- 
 gible position at that time, in 
 
 "Section A. — Zoology and Botany. 
 
 GREAT ROOM, PIG AND TINDER-BOX. 
 
 President — Professor Snore. Vice-Presidents — Professors 
 Doze and Wheezy. 
 
 " The scene at this moment was particu- 
 larly striking. The sun streamed through 
 the windows of the apartments, and tinted the 
 whole scene with its brilliant rays, bringing 
 
68 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 out in strong relief the noble visages of the 
 professors and scientific gentlemen, who, some 
 with bald heads, some with red heads, some 
 with brown heads, some with grey heads, 
 some with black heads, some with block 
 heads, presented a coup d'ceil which no eye- 
 witness will readily forget. In front of these 
 gentlemen were papers and inkstands ; and 
 round the room, on elevated benches extend- 
 ing as far as the forms could reach, were 
 assembled a brilliant concourse of those lovely 
 and elegant women for which Mudfog is 
 justly acknowledged to be without a rival in 
 the whole world. The contrast between their 
 fair faces and the dark coats and trousers of 
 the scientific gentlemen I shall never cease 
 to remember while Memory holds her seat. 
 
 " Time having been allowed for a slight 
 confusion, occasioned by the falling down of 
 the greater part of the platforms, to subside, 
 the president called on one of the secretaries 
 to read a communication entitled, ' Some 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 69 
 
 remarks on the industrious fleas, with con- 
 siderations on the importance of establishing 
 infant-schools among that numerous class of 
 society ; of directing their industry to useful 
 and practical ends ; and of applying the sur- 
 plus fruits thereof, towards providing for them 
 a comfortable and respectable maintenance in 
 their old age.' 
 
 " The author stated, that, having long 
 turned his attention to the moral and social 
 condition of these interesting animals, he had 
 been induced to visit an exhibition in Regent- 
 street, London, commonly known by the 
 designation of ' The Industrious Fleas/ 
 He had there seen many fleas, occupied 
 certainly in various pursuits and avocations, 
 but occupied, he was bound to add, in a 
 manner which no man of well-regulated mind 
 could fail to regard with sorrow and regret. 
 One flea, reduced to the level of a beast of 
 burden, was drawing about a miniature gig, 
 containing a particularly small effigy of His 
 
yo Report of the First Meeting 
 
 grace the Duke of Wellington ; while another 
 was staggering beneath the weight of a 
 golden model of his great adversary Napoleon 
 Bonaparte. Some, brought up as mounte- 
 banks and ballet-dancers, were performing a 
 figure-dance (he regretted to observe, that, of 
 the fleas so employed, several were females) ; 
 others were in training, in a small card- 
 board box, for pedestrians, — mere sporting 
 characters— and two were actually engaged 
 in the cold-blooded and barbarous occupation 
 of duelling; a pursuit from which humanity 
 recoiled with horror and disgust. He sug- 
 gested that measures should be immediately 
 taken to employ the labour of these fleas as 
 part and parcel of the productive power of 
 the country, which might easily be done by 
 the establishment among them of infant 
 schools and houses of industry, in which a 
 system of virtuous education, based upon 
 sound principles, should be observed, and 
 moral precepts strictly inculcated. He pro- 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 7 1 
 
 posed that every flea who presumed to 
 exhibit, for hire, music, or dancing, or any 
 species of theatrical entertainment, without 
 a licence, should be considered a vagabond, 
 and treated accordingly ; in which respect 
 he only placed him upon a level with the 
 rest of mankind. He would further suggest 
 that their labour should be placed under the 
 control and regulation of the state, who 
 should set apart from the profits, a fund for 
 the support of superannuated or disabled 
 fleas, their widows and orphans. With this 
 view, he proposed that liberal premiums 
 should be offered for the three best designs 
 for a general almshouse ; from which — as 
 insect architecture was well known to be in 
 a very advanced and perfect state — we might 
 possibly derive many valuable hints for the 
 improvement of our metropolitan universi- 
 ties, national galleries, and other public 
 edifices. 
 
 " The President wished to be informed 
 
72 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 how the ingenious gentleman proposed to 
 open a communication with fleas generally, 
 in the first instance, so that they might be 
 thoroughly imbued with a sense of the ad- 
 vantages they must necessarily derive from 
 changing their mode of life, and applying 
 themselves to honest labour. This appeared 
 to him, the only difficulty. 
 
 " The Author submitted that this diffi- 
 culty was easily overcome, or rather that 
 there was no difficulty at all in the case. 
 Obviously the course to be pursued, if Her 
 Majesty's government could be prevailed 
 upon to take up the plan, would be, to secure 
 at a remunerative salary the individual to 
 whom he had alluded as presiding over the 
 exhibition in Regent-street at the period of 
 his visit. That gentleman would at once be 
 able to put himself in communication with 
 the mass of the fleas, and to instruct them 
 in pursuance of some general plan of educa- 
 tion, to be sanctioned by Parliament, until 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 73 
 
 such time as the more intelligent among 
 them were advanced enough to officiate as 
 teachers to the rest 
 
 " The President and several members of 
 the section highly complimented the author 
 of the paper last read, on his most ingenious 
 and important treatise. It was determined 
 that the subject should be recommended to 
 the immediate consideration of the council. 
 
 " Mr. Wigsby produced a cauliflower 
 somewhat larger than a chaise-umbrella, 
 which had been raised by no other artificial 
 means than the simple application of highly 
 carbonated soda-water as manure. He ex- 
 plained that by scooping out the head, which 
 would afford a new and delicious species of 
 nourishment for the poor, a parachute, in 
 principle something similar to that con- 
 structed by M. Garnerin, was at once ob- 
 tained ; the stalk of course being kept down- 
 wards. He added that he was perfectly 
 willing to make a descent from a height of 
 
74 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 not less than three miles and a quarter ; and 
 had in fact already proposed the same to the 
 proprietors of Vauxhall Gardens, who in the 
 handsomest manner at once consented to 
 his wishes, and appointed an early day next 
 summer for the undertaking ; merely stipu- 
 lating that the rim of the cauliflower should 
 be previously broken in three or four places 
 to ensure the safety of the descent. 
 
 " The President congratulated the 
 public on the grand gala in store for them, 
 and warmly eulogised the proprietors of the 
 establishment alluded to, for their love of 
 science, and regard for the safety of human 
 life, both of which did them the highest 
 honour. 
 
 " A Member wished to know how many 
 thousand additional lamps the royal property 
 would be illuminated with, on the night after 
 the descent. 
 
 " Mr. Wigsby replied that the point was 
 not yet finally decided; but he believed it 
 
of the Mitdfog Association. 75 
 
 was proposed, over and above the ordinary 
 illuminations, to exhibit in various devices 
 eight millions and a-half of additional lamps. 
 
 "The Member expressed himself much 
 gratified with this announcement. 
 
 " Mr. Blunderum delighted the section 
 with a most interesting and valuable paper 
 * on the last moments of the learned pig,' 
 which produced a very strong impression on 
 the assembly, the account being compiled 
 from the personal recollections of his 
 favourite attendant. The account stated in 
 the most emphatic terms that the animal's 
 name was not Toby, but Solomon ; and dis- 
 tinctly proved that he could have no near 
 relatives in the profession, as many designing 
 persons had falsely stated, inasmuch as his 
 father, mother, brothers and sisters, had all 
 fallen victims to the butcher at different 
 times. An uncle of his indeed, had with 
 very great labour been traced to a sty in 
 Somers Town ; but as he was in a very 
 
76 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 infirm state at the time, being afflicted with 
 measles, and shortly afterwards disappeared, 
 there appeared too much reason to conjecture 
 that he had been converted into sausages. 
 The disorder of the learned pig was origi- 
 nally a severe cold, which, being aggravated 
 by excessive trough indulgence, finally settled 
 upon the lungs, and terminated in a general 
 decay of the constitution. A melancholy 
 instance of a presentiment entertained by 
 the animal of his approaching dissolution, 
 was recorded. After gratifying a numerous 
 and fashionable company with his perform- 
 ances, in which no falling off whatever was 
 visible, he fixed his eyes on the biographer, 
 and, turning to the watch which lay on the 
 floor, and on which he was accustomed to 
 point out the hour, deliberately passed his 
 snout twice round the dial. In precisely 
 four-and-twenty hours from that time he had 
 ceased to exist ! 
 
 11 Professor Wheezy inquired whether, 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 77 
 
 previous to his demise, the animal had ex- 
 pressed, by signs or otherwise, any wishes 
 regarding the disposal of his little property. 
 
 " Mr. Blunderum replied, that, when the 
 biographer took up the pack of cards at the 
 conclusion of the performance, the animal 
 grunted several times in a significant manner, 
 and nodding his head as he was accustomed 
 to do, when gratified. From these gestures 
 it was understood that he wished the attend- 
 ant to keep the cards, which he had ever 
 since done. He had not expressed any wish 
 relative to his watch, which had accordingly 
 been pawned by the same individual. 
 
 " The President wished to know whe- 
 ther any Member of the section had ever 
 seen or conversed with the pig-faced lady, 
 who was reported to have worn a black 
 velvet mask, and to have taken her meals 
 from a golden trough. 
 
 " After some hesitation a Member replied 
 that the pig-faced lady was his mother-in-law, 
 
78 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 and that he trusted the President would not 
 violate the sanctity of private life. 
 
 " The President begged pardon. He 
 had considered the pig-faced lady a public 
 character. Would the honourable member 
 object to state, with a view to the advance- 
 ment of science, whether she was in any way 
 connected with the learned pig ? 
 
 " The Member replied in the same low 
 tone, that, as the question appeared to in- 
 volve a suspicion that the learned pig might 
 be his half-brother, he must decline answer- 
 ing it. 
 
 " Section B. — Anatomy and Medicine. 
 
 COACH-HOUSE, PIG AND TINDER-BOX. 
 
 President — Dr. Toorell. Vice-Presidents — Professors 
 Muff and Nogo. 
 
 " Dr. Kutankumagen (of Moscow) read 
 
 to the section a report of a case which had 
 
 occurred within his own practice, strikingly 
 
 illustrative of the power of medicine, as 
 
 exemplified in his successful treatment of a 
 
of the Mtidjog Association. 79 
 
 virulent disorder. He had been called in to 
 visit the patient on the 1st of April 1837. 
 He was then labouring under symptoms 
 peculiarly alarming to any medical man. 
 His frame was stout and muscular, his step 
 firm and elastic, his cheeks plump and red, 
 his voice loud, his appetite good, his pulse 
 full and round. He was in the constant 
 habit of eating three meals per diem, and of 
 drinking at least one bottle of wine, and one 
 glass of spirituous liquors diluted with water, 
 in the course of the four-and-twenty hours. 
 He laughed constantly, and in so hearty a 
 manner that it was terrible to hear him. By 
 dint of powerful medicine, low diet, and 
 bleeding, the symptoms in the course of 
 three days perceptibly decreased. A rigid 
 perseverance in the same course of treat- 
 ment for only one week, accompanied with 
 small doses of water-gruel, weak broth, and 
 barley-water, led to their entire disappearance. 
 In the course of a month he was sufficiently 
 
80 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 recovered to be carried down stairs by two 
 nurses, and to enjoy an airing in a close 
 carriage, supported by soft pillows. At the 
 present moment he was restored so far as 
 to walk about, with the slight assistance of a 
 crutch and a boy. It would perhaps be grati- 
 fying to the section to learn that he ate little, 
 drank little, slept little, and was never heard 
 to laugh by any accident whatever. 
 
 " Dr. W. R. Fee, in complimenting the 
 honourable member upon the triumphant cure 
 he had effected, begged to ask whether the 
 patient still bled freely ? 
 
 " Dr. Kutankumagen replied in the 
 affirmative. 
 
 " Dr. W. R. Fee.— And you found that 
 he bled freely during the whole course of the 
 disorder ? 
 
 " Dr. Kutankumagen. — Oh dear, yes; 
 most freely. 
 
 "Dr. Neeshawts supposed, that if the 
 patient had not submitted to be bled with 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 
 
 great readiness and perseverance, so extra- 
 ordinary a cure could never, in fact, have 
 been accomplished. Dr. Kutankumagen 
 rejoined, certainly not. 
 
 "Mr. Knight Bell (M.R.C.S.) ex- 
 hibited a wax preparation of the interior of 
 a gentleman who in early life had inad- 
 vertently swallowed a door-key. It was a 
 curious fact that a medical student of dissi- 
 pated habits, being present at the post mortem 
 examination, found means to escape unob- 
 served from the room, with that portion of 
 the coats of the stomach upon which an exact 
 model of the instrument was distinctly im- 
 pressed, with which he hastened to a lock- 
 smith of doubtful character, who made a new 
 key from the pattern so shown to him. 
 With this key the medical student entered 
 the house - of the deceased gentleman, and 
 committed a burglary to a large amount, 
 for which he was subsequently tried and 
 executed. 
 
 6 
 
8 2 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 " The President wished to know what 
 became of the original key after the lapse of 
 years. Mr. Knight Bell replied that the 
 gentleman was always much accustomed to 
 punch, and it was supposed the acid had 
 gradually devoured it. 
 
 " Dr. Neeshawts and several of the 
 members were of opinion that the key must 
 have lain very cold and heavy upon the 
 gentleman's stomach. 
 
 " Mr. Knight Bell believed it did at 
 first. It was worthy of remark, perhaps, that 
 for some years the gentleman was troubled 
 with a night-mare, under the influence of 
 which he always imagined himself a wine- 
 cellar door. 
 
 " Professor Muff related a very extra- 
 ordinary and convincing proof of the won- 
 derful efficacy of the system of infinitesimal 
 doses, which the section were doubtless 
 aware was based upon the theory that the 
 very minutest amount of any given drug, 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 83 
 
 properly dispersed through the human frame, 
 would be productive of precisely the same 
 result as a very large dose administered in the 
 usual manner. Thus, the fortieth part of a 
 grain of calomel was supposed to be equal to 
 a five-grain calomel pill, and so on in propor- 
 tion throughout the whole range of medicine. 
 He had tried the experiment in a curious 
 manner upon a publican who had been 
 brought into the hospital with a broken head, 
 and was cured upon the infinitesimal system 
 in the incredibly short space of three months. 
 This man was a hard drinker. He (Professor 
 Muff) had dispersed three drops of rum 
 through a bucket of water, and requested the 
 man to drink the whole. What was the 
 result ? Before he had drunk a quart, he 
 was in a state of beastly intoxication ; and 
 five other men were made dead drunk with 
 the remainder. 
 
 " The President wished to know whether 
 an infinitesimal dose of soda-water would 
 
84 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 have recovered them ? Professor Muff re- 
 plied that the twenty-fifth part of a tea- 
 spoonful, properly administered to each 
 patient, would have sobered him immediately. 
 The President remarked that this was a most 
 important discovery, and he hoped the Lord 
 Mayor and Court of Aldermen would patron- 
 ize it immediately. 
 
 " A Member begged to be informed 
 whether it would be possible to administer — 
 say, the twentieth part of a grain of bread 
 and cheese to all grown-up paupers, and the 
 fortieth part to children, with the same satis- 
 fying effect as their present allowance. 
 
 " Professor Muff was willing to stake 
 his professional reputation on the perfect 
 adequacy of such a quantity of food to the 
 support of human life — in workhouses ; the 
 addition of the fifteenth part of a grain of 
 pudding twice a week would render it a high 
 diet. 
 
 " Professor Nogo called the attention of 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 85 
 
 the section to a very extraordinary case of 
 animal magnetism. A private watchman, 
 being merely looked at by the operator from 
 the opposite side of a wide street, was at once 
 observed to be in a very drowsy and languid 
 state. He was followed to his box, and 
 being once slightly rubbed on the palms of 
 the hands, fell into a sound sleep, in which he 
 continued without intermission for ten hours. 
 
 " Section C. — Statistics. 
 
 HAY-LOFT, ORIGINAL PIG. 
 
 President — Mr. Woodensconce. Vice-Presidents — Mr. 
 Ledbrain and Mr. Timbered. 
 
 " Mr. Slug stated to the section the 
 result of some calculations he had made with 
 great difficulty and labour, regarding the state 
 of infant education among the middle classes 
 of London. He found that, within a circle 
 of three miles from the Elephant and Castle, 
 the following were the names and numbers of 
 children's books principally in circulation : — 
 
86 
 
 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 " Jack the Giant-killer . 
 
 • 7>943 
 
 Ditto and Bean-stalk . 
 
 . 8,621 
 
 Ditto and Eleven Brothers . 
 
 . 2,845 
 
 Ditto and Jill . . 
 
 . 1,998 
 
 Total 
 
 . 21,407 
 
 " He found that the proportion of Robin- 
 son Crusoes to Philip Quarlls was as four and 
 a half to one ; and that the preponderance of 
 Valentine and Orsons over Goody Two 
 Shoeses was as three and an eighth of the 
 former to half a one of the latter ; a com- 
 parison of Seven Champions with Simple 
 Simons gave the same result. The igno- 
 rance that prevailed, was lamentable. One 
 child, on being asked whether he would 
 rather be Saint George of England or a 
 respectable tallow-chandler, instantly replied, 
 1 Taint George of Ingling.' Another, a little 
 boy of eight years old, was found to be firmly 
 impressed with a belief in the existence of 
 dragons, and openly stated that it was his 
 intention when he grew up, to rush forth 
 
of the Mitdfog Association. 87 
 
 sword in hand for the deliverance of captive 
 princesses, and the promiscuous slaughter of 
 giants. Not one child among the number 
 interrogated had ever heard of Mun^o Park, 
 — some inquiring whether he was at all con- 
 nected with the black man that swept the 
 crossing ; and others whether he was in any- 
 way related to the Regent's Park. They 
 had not the slightest conception of the 
 commonest principles of mathematics, and 
 considered Sinbad the Sailor the most 
 enterprising voyager that the world had 
 ever produced. 
 
 " A Member strongly deprecating the use 
 of all the other books mentioned, suggested 
 that Jack and Jill might perhaps be exempted 
 from the general censure, inasmuch as the 
 hero and heroine, in the very outset of the 
 tale, were depicted as going up a hill to fetch 
 a pail of water, which was a laborious and 
 useful occupation, — supposing the family 
 linen was being washed, for instance. 
 
88 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 " Mr. Slug feared that the moral effect of 
 this passage was more than counterbalanced 
 by another in a subsequent part of the poem, 
 in which very gross allusion was made to the 
 mode in which the heroine was personally 
 chastised by her mother 
 
 " ' For laughing at Jack's disaster ; ' 
 
 besides, the whole work had this one great 
 fault, it was not t7'ue. 
 
 " The President complimented the 
 honourable member on the excellent dis- 
 tinction he had drawn. Several other Mem- 
 bers, too, dwelt upon the immense and urgent 
 necessity of storing the minds of children 
 with nothing but facts and figures ; which 
 process the President very forcibly remarked, 
 had made them (the section) the men they 
 were. 
 
 " Mr. Slug then stated some curious 
 calculations respecting the dogs'-meat barrows 
 of London. He found that the total number 
 
of the Mud fog Association. 89 
 
 of small carts and barrows engaged in dis- 
 pensing provision to the cats and dogs of the 
 metropolis was one thousand seven hundred 
 and forty-three. The average number of 
 skewers delivered daily with the provender, 
 by each dogs'-meat cart or barrow, was 
 thirty-six. Now, multiplying the number of 
 skewers so delivered by the number of bar- 
 rows, a total of sixty-two thousand seven 
 hundred and forty-eight skewers daily would 
 be obtained. Allowing that, of these sixty 
 two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight 
 skewers, the odd two thousand seven hundred 
 and forty-eight were accidentally devoured 
 with the meat, by the most voracious of the 
 animals supplied, it followed that sixty thou- 
 sand skewers per day, or the enormous num- 
 ber of twenty-one millions nine hundred 
 thousand skewers annually, were wasted in 
 the kennels and dustholes of London ; which, 
 if collected and warehoused, would in ten 
 years' time afford a mass of timber more than 
 
90 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 sufficient for the construction of a first-rate 
 vessel of war for the use of her Majesty's 
 navy, to be called ' The Royal Skewer/ and 
 to become under that name the terror of all 
 the enemies of this island. 
 
 " Mr. X. Ledbrain read a very ingenious 
 communication, from which it appeared that 
 the total number of legs belonging to the 
 manufacturing population of one great town 
 in Yorkshire was, in round numbers, forty 
 thousand, while the total number of chair and 
 stool legs in their houses was only thirty 
 thousand, which, upon the very favourable 
 average of three legs to a seat, yielded only 
 ten thousand seats in all. From this calcula- 
 tion it would appear, — not taking wooden or 
 cork legs into the account, but allowing two 
 legs to every person, — that ten thousand 
 individuals (one-half of the whole population) 
 were either destitute of any rest for their 
 legs at all, or passed the whole of their leisure 
 time in sitting upon boxes. 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 91 
 
 " Section D.— Mechanical Science. 
 
 COACH-HOUSE, ORIGINAL PIG. 
 
 President— Mr. Carter. Vice-Presidents— Mr. Truck 
 and Mr. Waghorn. 
 
 " Professor Queerspeck exhibited an 
 elegant model of a portable railway, neatly 
 mounted in a green case, for the waistcoat 
 pocket. By attaching this beautiful instru- 
 ment to his boots, any Bank or public-office 
 clerk could transport himself from his place 
 of residence to his place of business, at the 
 easy rate of sixty-five miles an hour, which, 
 to gentlemen of sedentary pursuits, would be 
 an incalculable advantage. 
 
 " The President was desirous of knowing 
 whether it was necessary to have a level 
 surface on which the gentleman was to run. 
 
 " Professor Queerspeck explained that 
 City gentlemen would run in trains, being 
 handcuffed together to prevent confusion or 
 unpleasantness. For instance, trains would 
 start every morning at eight, nine, and ten 
 
92 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 o'clock, from Camden Town, Islington, 
 Camberwell, Hackney, and various other 
 places in which City gentlemen are accus- 
 tomed to reside. It would be necessary to 
 have a level, but he had provided for this 
 difficulty by proposing that the best line that 
 the circumstances would admit of, should be 
 taken through the sewers which undermine 
 the streets of the metropolis, and which, well 
 lighted by jets from the gas pipes which run 
 immediately above them, would form a 
 pleasant and commodious arcade, especially 
 in winter-time, when the inconvenient custom 
 of carrying umbrellas, now so general, could 
 be wholly dispensed with. In reply to 
 another question, Professor Queerspeck stated 
 that no substitute for the purposes to which 
 these arcades were at present devoted had 
 yet occurred to him, but that he hoped no fan- 
 ciful objection on this head would be allowed 
 to interfere with so great an undertaking. 
 
 " Mr. Jobba produced a forcing-machine 
 on a novel plan, for bringing joint-stock 
 
of the Mud fog Association. 
 
 railway shares prematurely to a premium. 
 The instrument was in the form of an elegant 
 gilt weather-glass, of most dazzling appear- 
 ance, and was worked behind, by strings, 
 after the manner of a pantomime trick, the 
 strings being always pulled by the directors 
 of the company to which the machine be- 
 longed. The quicksilver was so ingeniously 
 placed, that when the acting directors held 
 shares in their pockets, figures denoting very 
 small expenses and very large returns ap- 
 peared upon the glass ; but the moment the 
 directors parted with these pieces of paper, 
 the estimate of needful expenditure suddenly 
 increased itself to an immense extent, while 
 the statements of certain profits became 
 reduced in the same proportion. Mr. Jobba 
 stated that the machine had been in constant 
 requisition for some months past, and he had 
 never once known it to fail, 
 
 11 A Member expressed his opinion that 
 it was extremely neat and pretty. He 
 wished to know whether it was not liable to 
 
94 Report of the First Meeting 
 
 accidental derangement ? Mr. Jobba said 
 that the whole machine was undoubtedly 
 liable to be blown up, but that was the only- 
 objection to it, 
 
 " Professor Nogo arrived from the 
 anatomical section to exhibit a model of a 
 safety fire-escape, which could be fixed at 
 any time, in less than half an hour, and by 
 means of which, the youngest or most infirm 
 persons (successfully resisting the progress 
 of the flames until it was quite ready) could 
 be preserved if they merely balanced them- 
 selves for a few minutes on the sill of their 
 bed-room window, and got into the escape 
 without falling into the street. The Pro- 
 fessor stated that the number of boys who 
 had been rescued in the daytime by this 
 machine from houses which were not on fire, 
 was almost incredible. Not a conflagration 
 had occurred in the whole of London for 
 many months past to which the escape had 
 not been carried on the very next day, and 
 put in action before a concourse of persons. 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 95 
 
 " The President inquired whether there 
 was not some difficulty in ascertaining which 
 was the top of the machine, and which the 
 bottom, in cases of pressing emergency. 
 
 " Professor Nogo explained that of 
 course it could not be expected to act quite 
 as well when there was a fire, as when there 
 was not a fire ; but in the former case he 
 thought it would be of equal service whether 
 the top were up or down." 
 
 With the last section our correspondent 
 concludes his most able and faithful Report, 
 which will never cease to reflect credit upon 
 him for his scientific attainments, and upon 
 us for our enterprising spirit. It is needless 
 to take a review of the subjects which have 
 been discussed ; of the mode in which they 
 have been examined ; of the great truths 
 which they have elicited. They are now 
 before the world, and we leave them to read, 
 to consider, and to profit. 
 
 The place of meeting for next year has 
 
96 Report of the First Meeting. 
 
 undergone discussion, and has at length been 
 decided, regard being had to, and evidence 
 being taken upon, the goodness of its wines, 
 the supply of its markets, the hospitality of 
 its inhabitants, and the quality of its hotels. 
 We hope at this next meeting our correspon- 
 dent may again be present, and that we may 
 be once more the means of placing his com- 
 munications before the world. Until that 
 period we have been prevailed upon to allow 
 this number of our Miscellany to be retailed 
 to the public, or wholesaled to the trade, 
 without any advance upon our usual price. 
 
 We have only to add, that the com- 
 mittees are now broken up, and that Mudfog 
 is once again restored to its accustomed 
 tranquillity, — that Professors and Members 
 have had balls, and soirdes, and suppers, and 
 great mutual complimentations, and have at 
 length dispersed to their several homes, — 
 whither all good wishes and joys attend them, 
 until next year ! Signed Boz. 
 
FULL 
 
 KEPOBT OF THE SECOND MEETING 
 OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION 
 
 FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING. 
 
 In October last, we did ourselves the immor- 
 tal credit of recording, at an enormous ex- 
 pense, and by dint of exertions unparalleled 
 in the history of periodical publication, the 
 proceedings of the Mudfog Association for 
 the Advancement of Everything, which in 
 that month held its first great half-yearly 
 meeting, to the wonder and delight of the 
 whole empire. We announced at the con- 
 clusion of that extraordinary and most re- 
 markable Report, that when the Second 
 Meeting of the Society should take place, we 
 should be found again at our post, renewing 
 our gigantic and spirited endeavours, and 
 once more making the world ring with the 
 
 7 
 
98 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 accuracy, authenticity, immeasurable superi- 
 ority, and intense remarkability of our account 
 of its proceedings. In redemption of this 
 pledge, we caused to be despatched per steam 
 to Oldcastle (at which place this second 
 meeting of the Society was held on the 20th 
 instant), the same superhumanly-endowed 
 gentleman who furnished the former report, 
 and who, — gifted by nature with transcendent 
 abilities, and furnished by us with a body of 
 assistants scarcely inferior to himself, — has 
 forwarded a series of letters, which, for faith- 
 fulness of description, power of language, 
 fervour of thought, happiness of expression, 
 and importance of subject-matter, have no 
 equal in the epistolary literature of any age 
 or country. We give this gentleman's cor- 
 respondence entire, and in the order in which 
 it reached our office. 
 
 " Saloon of Steamer , Thursday night, half -past eight. 
 " When I left New Burlington Street this 
 evening in the hackney cabriolet, number 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 99 
 
 four thousand two hundred and eighty-five, 
 I experienced sensations as novel as they 
 were oppressive. A sense of the importance 
 of the task I had undertaken, a consciousness 
 that I was leaving London, and, stranger 
 still, going somewhere else, a feeling of lone- 
 liness and a sensation of jolting, quite be- 
 wildered my thoughts, and for a time ren- 
 dered me even insensible to the presence of 
 my carpet-bag and hat-box. I shall ever feel 
 grateful to the driver of a Blackwall omnibus 
 who, by thrusting the pole of his vehicle 
 through the small door of the cabriolet, 
 awakened me from a tumult of imaginings 
 that are wholly indescribable. But of such 
 materials is our imperfect nature composed ! 
 
 " I am happy to say that I am the first 
 passenger on board, and shall thus be enabled 
 to give you an account of all that happens in 
 the order of its occurrence. The chimney is 
 smoking a good deal, and so are the crew ; 
 and the captain, I am informed, is very drunk 
 
ioo Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 in a little house upon deck, something like 
 a black turnpike. I should infer from all I 
 hear that he has got the steam up. 
 
 " You will readily guess with what feel- 
 ings I have just made the discovery that my 
 berth is in the same closet with those engaged 
 by Professor Woodensconce, Mr. Slug, and 
 Professor Grime. Professor Woodensconce 
 has taken the shelf above me, and Mr. Slug 
 and Professor Grime the two shelves oppo- 
 site. Their luggage has already arrived. On 
 Mr. Slug's bed is a long tin tube of about 
 three inches in diameter, carefully closed at 
 both ends. What can this contain ? Some 
 powerful instrument of a new construction, 
 doubtless. 
 
 " Ten minutes past nine. 
 
 " Nobody has yet arrived, nor has any- 
 thing fresh come in my way except several 
 joints of beef and mutton, from which I con- 
 clude that a good plain dinner has been pro- 
 vided for to-morrow. There is a singular 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 101 
 
 smell below, which gave me some uneasiness 
 at first ; but as the steward says it is always 
 there, and never goes away, ili«?di "quite cpfrii- 
 fortable again. I learn /from jth$3- man ■ h^-; 
 the different sections wii'l be ' distributed at 
 the Black Boy and Stomach-ache, and the 
 Boot-jack and Countenance. If this intelli- 
 gence be true (and I have no reason to doubt 
 it), your readers will draw such conclusions 
 as their different opinions may suggest. 
 
 " I write down these remarks as they 
 occur to me, or as the facts come to my 
 knowledge, in order that my first impressions 
 may lose nothing of their original vividness. 
 I shall despatch them in small packets as 
 opportunities arise. ,, 
 
 " Half -past nine. 
 
 " Some dark object has just appeared 
 upon the wharf. I think it is a travelling 
 carriage ." 
 
 " A quarter to ten. 
 
 " No, it isn't." 
 
102 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 " Half-past ten. 
 
 '-' u Tj if- passengers are pouring in every 
 instant -Four omnibuses full have just arrived 
 upon the wharf, and all is bustle and activity. 
 The noise and confusion are very great. 
 Cloths are laid in the cabins, and the steward 
 is placing blue plates-full of knobs of cheese 
 at equal distances down the centre of the 
 tables. He drops a great many knobs ; but, 
 being used to it, picks them up again with 
 great dexterity, and, after wiping them on his 
 sleeve, throws them back into the plates. 
 He is a young man of exceedingly prepos- 
 sessing appearance — either dirty or a mulatto, 
 but I think the former. 
 
 " An interesting old gentleman, who came 
 to the wharf in an omnibus, has just quar- 
 relled violently with the porters, and is 
 staggering towards the vessel with a large 
 trunk in his arms. I trust and hope that he 
 may reach it in safety ; but the board he has 
 
of the Mtidfog Association. 103 
 
 to cross is narrow and slippery. Was that a 
 splash ? Gracious powers ! 
 
 11 1 have just returned from the deck. The 
 trunk is standing upon the extreme brink of 
 the wharf, but the old gentleman is nowhere 
 to be seen. The watchman is not sure whe- 
 ther he went down or not, but promises to 
 drag for him the first thing to-morrow morn- 
 ing. May his humane efforts prove successful ! 
 
 " Professor Nogo has this moment arrived 
 with his nightcap on under his hat. He has 
 ordered a glass of cold brandy and water, 
 with a hard biscuit and a bason, and has gone 
 straight to bed. What can this mean ? 
 
 " The three other scientific gentlemen to 
 whom I have already alluded have come on 
 board, and have all tried their beds, with the 
 exception of Professor Woodensconce, who 
 sleeps in one of the top ones, and cant get 
 into it. Mr. Slug, who sleeps in the other 
 top one, is unable to get out of his, and is to 
 have his supper handed up by a boy. I 
 
1 04 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 have had the honour to introduce myself to 
 these gentlemen, and we have amicably 
 arranged the order in which we shall retire 
 to rest ; which it is necessary to agree upon, 
 because, although the cabin is very comfort- 
 able, there is not room for more than one 
 gentleman to be out of bed at a time, and 
 even he must take his boots off in the passage. 
 " As I anticipated, the knobs of cheese 
 were provided for the passengers' supper, and 
 are now in course of consumption. Your 
 readers will be surprised to hear that Pro- 
 fessor Woodensconce has abstained from 
 cheese for eight years, although he takes 
 butter in considerable quantities. Professor 
 Grime having lost several teeth, is unable, I 
 observe, to eat his crusts without previously 
 soaking them in his bottled porter. How 
 interesting are these peculiarities ! " 
 
 " Half -past eleven. 
 
 " Professors Woodensconce and Grime, 
 with a degree of good humour that delights 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 105 
 
 us all, have just arranged to toss for a bottle 
 of mulled port. There has been some discus- 
 sion whether the payment should be decided 
 by the first toss or the best out of three. 
 Eventually the latter course has been deter- 
 mined on. Deeply do I wish that both gen- 
 tlemen could win ; but that being impossible, 
 I own that my personal aspirations (I speak 
 as an individual, and do not compromise 
 either you or your readers by this expression 
 of feeling) are with Professor Woodensconce. 
 I have backed that gentleman to the amount 
 of eighteenpence." 
 
 " Twenty minutes to twelve. 
 
 11 Professor Grime has inadvertently 
 tossed his half-crown out of one of the cabin- 
 windows, and it has been arranged that the 
 steward shall toss for him. Bets are offered 
 on any side to any amount, but there are no 
 takers. 
 
 i] Professor Woodensconce has just called 
 1 woman ;' but the coin having lodged in a 
 
1 06 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 beam, is a long time coming down again. 
 The interest and suspense of this one mo- 
 ment are beyond anything that can be ima- 
 gined/' 
 
 " Twelve o'clock. 
 
 " The mulled port is smoking on the table 
 before me, and Professor Grime has won. 
 Tossing is a game of chance ; but on every 
 ground, whether of public or private cha- 
 racter, intellectual endowments, or scientific 
 attainments, I cannot help expressing my 
 opinion that Professor Woodensconce ought to 
 have come off victorious. There is an exul- 
 tation about Professor Grime incompatible, I 
 fear, with true greatness." 
 
 " A quarter past twelve. 
 
 " Professor Grime continues to exult, 
 and to boast of his victory in no very mea- 
 sured terms, observing that he always does 
 win, and that he knew it would be a ' head ' 
 beforehand, with many other remarks of a 
 similar nature. Surely this gentleman is not 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 107 
 
 so lost to every feeling of decency and pro- 
 priety as not to feel and know the superiority 
 of Professor Woodensconce ? Is Professor 
 Grime insane ? or does he wish to be re- 
 minded in plain language of his true 'position 
 in society, and the precise level of his acquire- 
 ments and abilities ? Professor Grime will 
 do well to look to this." 
 
 " One o'clock. 
 " I am writing in bed. The small cabin 
 is illuminated by the feeble light of a flicker- 
 ing lamp suspended from the ceiling; Pro- 
 fessor Grime is lying on the opposite shelf 
 on the broad of his back, with his mouth wide 
 open. The scene is indescribably solemn. 
 The rippling of the tide, the noise of the 
 sailors' feet overhead, the gruff voices on the 
 river, the dogs on the shore, the snoring of 
 the passengers, and a constant creaking of 
 every plank in the vessel, are the only sounds 
 that meet the ear. With these exceptions, 
 all is profound silence. 
 
108 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 " My curiosity has been within the last 
 moment very much excited. Mr. Slug, who 
 lies above Professor Grime, has cautiously 
 withdrawn the curtains of his berth, and, 
 after looking anxiously out, as if to satisfy 
 himself that his companions are asleep, has 
 taken up the tin tube of which I have before 
 spoken, and is regarding it with great interest. 
 What rare mechanical combination can be 
 contained in that mysterious case ? It is evi- 
 dently a profound secret to all." 
 
 " A quarter past one. 
 
 " The behaviour of Mr. Slug grows more 
 and more mysterious. He has unscrewed 
 the top of the tube, and now renews his 
 observations upon his companions, evidently 
 to make sure that he is wholly unobserved. 
 He is clearly on the eve of some great ex- 
 periment. Pray heaven that it be not a 
 dangerous one ; but the interests of science 
 must be promoted, and I am prepared for the 
 worst/' 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 109 
 
 " Five minutes later. 
 
 " He has produced a large pair of scissors, 
 and drawn a roll of some substance, not un- 
 like parchment in appearance, from the tin 
 case. The experiment is about to begin. I 
 must strain my eyes to the utmost, in the 
 attempt to follow its minutest operation." 
 " Twenty minutes before two. 
 
 " I have at length been enabled to ascer- 
 tain that the tin tube contains a few yards of 
 some celebrated plaster, recommended — as I 
 discover on regarding the label attentively 
 through my eye-glass- — as a preservative 
 against sea-sickness. Mr. Slug has cut it up 
 into small portions, and is now sticking it 
 over himself in every direction." 
 
 " Three o'clock. 
 
 " Precisely a quarter of an hour ago we 
 weighed anchor, and the machinery was sud- 
 denly put in motion with a noise so appalling, 
 that Professor Woodensconce (who had as- 
 cended to his berth by means of a platform 
 
1 10 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 of carpet bags arranged by himself on geo- 
 metrical principles) darted from his shelf head 
 foremost, and, gaining his feet with all the 
 rapidity of extreme terror, ran wildly into 
 the ladies' cabin, under the impression that 
 we were sinking, and uttering loud cries for 
 aid. I am assured that the scene which en- 
 sued baffles all description. There were one 
 hundred and forty-seven ladies in their re- 
 spective berths at the time. 
 
 " Mr. Slug has remarked, as an additional 
 instance of the extreme ingenuity of the 
 steam-engine as applied to purposes of navi- 
 gation, that in whatever part of the vessel a 
 passenger's berth may be situated, the machi- 
 nery always appears to be exactly under his 
 pillow. He intends stating this very beauti- 
 ful, though simple discovery, to the associa- 
 tion." 
 
 " Half-past three. 
 
 " We are still in smooth water ; that is to 
 say, in as smooth water as a steam-vessel ever 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 1 1 1 
 
 can be, for, as Professor Woodensconce (who 
 has just woke up) learnedly remarks, another 
 great point of ingenuity about a steamer is, 
 that it always carries a little storm with it. 
 You can scarcely conceive how exciting the 
 jerking pulsation of the ship becomes. It is 
 a matter of positive difficulty to get to sleep." 
 " Friday afternoon, six o'clock. 
 
 " I regret to inform you that Mr. Slugs 
 plaster has proved of no avail. He is in 
 great agony, but has applied several large, 
 additional pieces notwithstanding. How T af- 
 fecting is this extreme devotion to science 
 and pursuit of knowledge under the most 
 trying circumstances ! 
 
 " We were extremely happy this morn- 
 ing, and the breakfast was one of the most 
 animated description. Nothing unpleasant 
 occurred until noon, with the exception of 
 Doctor Foxey s brown silk umbrella and 
 white hat becoming entangled in the machi- 
 nery while he was explaining to a knot of 
 
H2 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 ladies the construction of the steam-engine. 
 I fear the gravy soup for lunch was injudi- 
 cious. We lost a great many passengers 
 almost immediately afterwards." 
 
 " Half -past six. 
 
 " I am again in bed. Anything so heart- 
 rending as Mr. Slug s sufferings it has never 
 yet been my lot to witness." 
 
 " Seven d clock. 
 
 "A messenger has just come down for 
 a clean pocket-handkerchief from Professor 
 Woodensconce s bag, that unfortunate gentle- 
 man being quite unable to leave the deck, 
 and imploring constantly to be thrown over- 
 board. From this man I understand that 
 Professor Nogo, though in a state of utter 
 exhaustion, clings feebly to the hard biscuit 
 and cold brandy and water, under the impres- 
 sion that they will yet restore him. Such is 
 the triumph of mind over matter. 
 
 " Professor Grime is in bed, to all appear- 
 ance quite well ; but he will eat, and it is 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 113 
 
 disagreeable to see him. Has this gentleman 
 no sympathy with the sufferings of his fellow- 
 creatures ? If he has, on what principle can 
 he call for mutton-chops — and smile ? " 
 
 " Black Boy and Stomach-ache ', 
 
 Oldcastle, Saturday noon. 
 
 " You will be happy to learn that I have 
 at length arrived here in safety. The town 
 is excessively crowded, and all the private 
 lodgings and hotels are filled with savans of 
 both sexes. The tremendous assemblage of 
 intellect that one encounters in every street 
 is in the last degree overwhelming. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the throng of people 
 
 here, I have been fortunate enough to meet 
 
 with very comfortable accommodation on 
 
 very reasonable terms, having secured a sofa 
 
 in the first-floor passage at one guinea per 
 
 night, which includes permission to take my 
 
 meals in the bar, on condition that I walk 
 
 about the streets at all other times, to make 
 
 room for other gentlemen similarly situated. 
 
 8 
 
H4 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 I have been over the outhouses intended to 
 be devoted to the reception of the various 
 sections, both here and at the Boot-jack and 
 Countenance, and am much delighted with 
 the arrangements. Nothing can exceed the 
 fresh appearance of the saw-dust with which 
 the floors are sprinkled. The forms are of 
 unplaned deal, and the general effect, as you ' 
 can well imagine, is extremely beautiful." 
 
 " Half -past nine. 
 
 " The number and rapidity of the arrivals 
 
 are quite bewildering. Within the last ten 
 
 minutes a stage-coach has driven up to the 
 
 door, filled inside and out with distinguished 
 
 characters, comprising Mr. Muddlebranes, 
 
 Mr. Drawley, Professor Muff, Mr. X. Misty, 
 
 Mr. X. X. Misty, Mr. Purblind, Professor 
 
 Rummun, The Honourable and Reverend 
 
 Mr. Long Eers, Professor John Ketch, Sir 
 
 William Joltered, Doctor Buffer, Mr. Smith 
 
 (of London), Mr. Brown (of Edinburgh), Sir 
 
 Hookham Snivey, and Professor Pumpkin- 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 115 
 
 skull. The ten last-named gentlemen were wet 
 through, and looked extremely intelligent." 
 
 " Sunday, two d clock, p.m. 
 
 " The Honourable and Reverend Mr. 
 Long Eers, accompanied by Sir William 
 Joltered, walked and drove this morning. 
 They accomplished the former feat in boots, 
 and the latter in a hired fly. This has natu- 
 rally given rise to much discussion. 
 
 " I have just learnt that an interview has 
 taken place at the Boot-jack and Countenance 
 between Sowster, the active and intelligent 
 beadle of this place, and Professor Pumpkin- 
 skull, who, as your readers are doubtless 
 aware, is an influential member of the council. 
 I forbear to communicate any of the rumours 
 to which this very extraordinary proceeding 
 has given rise until I have seen Sowster, and 
 endeavoured to ascertain the truth from him." 
 
 " Half -past six. 
 
 " I engaged a donkey-chaise shortly 
 after writing the above, and proceeded at a 
 
1 1 6 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 brisk trot in the direction of Sowster's resi- 
 dence, passing through a beautiful expanse 
 of country, with red brick buildings on 
 either side, and stopping in the market- 
 place to observe the spot where Mr. Kwak- 
 ley's hat was blown off yesterday. It is an 
 uneven piece of paving, but has certainly no 
 appearance which would lead one to suppose 
 that any such event had recently occurred 
 there. From this point I proceeded — passing 
 the gas-works and tallow-melter's — to a lane 
 which had been pointed out to me as the 
 beadle's place of residence ; and before I had 
 driven a dozen yards further, I had the good 
 fortune to meet Sowster himself advancing 
 towards me. 
 
 " Sowster is a fat man, with a more en- 
 larged development of that peculiar confor- 
 mation of countenance which is vulgarly 
 termed a double chin than I remember to 
 have ever seen before. He has also a very 
 red nose, which he attributes to a habit of 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 117 
 
 early rising — so red, indeed, that but for this 
 explanation I should have supposed it to 
 proceed from occasional inebriety. He in- 
 formed me that he did not feel himself at 
 liberty to relate what had passed between 
 himself and Professor Pumpkinskull, but had 
 no objection to state that it was connected 
 with a matter of police regulation, and added 
 with peculiar significance ' Never wos sitch 
 times ! ' 
 
 " You will easily believe that this intelli- 
 gence gave me considerable surprise, not 
 wholly unmixed with anxiety, and that I lost 
 no time in waiting on Professor Pumpkin- 
 skull, and stating the object of my visit. 
 After a few moments' reflection, the Professor, 
 who, I am bound to say, behaved with the 
 utmost politeness, openly avowed (I mark 
 the passage in italics) that he had requested 
 Sowster to attend on the Monday morning at 
 the Boot-jack and Countenance, to keep off the 
 boys ; and that he had further desired that the 
 
1 1 8 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 under-beadle might be stationed, with the same 
 object, at the Black Boy and Stomach-ache ! 
 
 " Now I leave this unconstitutional pro- 
 ceeding to your comments and the considera- 
 tion of your readers. I have yet to learn 
 that a beadle, without the precincts of a 
 church, churchyard, or workhouse, and acting 
 otherwise than under the express orders 
 of churchwardens and overseers in council 
 assembled, to enforce the law against people 
 who come upon the parish, and other offen- 
 ders, has any lawful authority whatever over 
 the rising youth of this country. I have yet 
 to learn that a beadle can be called out by 
 any civilian to exercise a domination and 
 despotism over the boys of Britain. I have 
 yet to learn that a beadle will be permitted 
 by the commissioners of poor law regulation 
 to wear out the soles and heels of his boots 
 in illegal interference with the liberties of 
 people not proved poor or otherwise criminal. 
 I have yet to learn that a beadle has power 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 119 
 
 to stop up the Queen's highway at his will 
 and pleasure, or that the whole width of the 
 street is not free and open to any man, boy, 
 or woman in existence, up to the very walls 
 of the houses — ay, be they Black Boys and 
 Stornach-aches, or Boot-jacks and Counte- 
 nances, I care not." 
 
 "Nine o'clock. 
 
 " I have procured a local artist to make a 
 faithful sketch of the tyrant Sowster, which, 
 as he has acquired this infamous celebrity, 
 you will no doubt wish to have engraved for 
 the purpose of presenting a copy with every 
 copy of your next number. I enclose it. 
 The under-beadle has consented to write his 
 life, but it is to be strictly anonymous. 
 
 " The accompanying likeness is of course 
 from the life, and complete in every respect. 
 Even if I had been totally ignorant of the 
 man's real character, and it had been placed 
 before me without remark, I should have 
 shuddered involuntarily. There is an intense 
 
1 20 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 malignity of expression in the features, and 
 a baleful ferocity of purpose in the ruffian's 
 eye, which appals and sickens. His whole air 
 is rampant with cruelty, nor is the stomach less 
 characteristic of his demoniac propensities." 
 
 " Monday. 
 " The great day has at length arrived. I 
 have neither eyes, nor ears, nor pens, nor ink, 
 nor paper, for anything but the wonderful 
 proceedings that have astounded my senses. 
 Let me collect my energies and proceed to 
 the account. 
 
 " Section A.— Zoology and Botany. 
 
 FRONT PARLOUR, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. 
 
 President— Six William Joltered. Vice-Presidents — Mr. 
 Muddlebranes and Mr. Drawley. 
 
 " Mr. X. X. Misty communicated some 
 remarks on the disappearance of dancing 
 bears from the streets of London, with obser- 
 vations on the exhibition of monkeys as 
 connected with barrel-organs. The writer 
 had observed, with feelings of the utmost 
 
Thv Tyrant SowSter % 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 1 23 
 
 pain and regret, that some years ago a sud- 
 den and unaccountable change in the public 
 taste took place with reference to itinerant 
 bears, who, being discountenanced by the 
 populace, gradually fell off one by one from 
 the streets of the metropolis, until not one 
 remained to create a taste for natural history 
 in the breasts of the poor and uninstructed. 
 One bear, indeed, — a brown and ragged 
 animal, — had lingered about the haunts of 
 his former triumphs, with a worn and dejected 
 visage and feeble limbs, and had essayed to 
 wield his quarter-staff for the amusement of 
 the multitude ; but hunger, and an utter want 
 of any due recompense for his abilities, had 
 at length driven him from the field, and it 
 was only too probable that he had fallen a 
 sacrifice to the rising taste for grease. He 
 regretted to add that a similar, and no less 
 lamentable, change had taken place with 
 reference to monkeys. These delightful 
 animals had formerly been almost as plentiful 
 
124 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 as the organs on the tops of which they were 
 accustomed to sit ; the proportion in the year 
 1829 (it appeared by the parliamentary return) 
 being as one monkey to three organs. Owing, 
 however, to an altered taste in musical in- 
 struments, and the substitution, in a great 
 measure, of narrow boxes of music for organs, 
 which left the monkeys nothing to sit upon, 
 this source of public amusement was wholly 
 dried up. Considering it a matter of the 
 deepest importance, in connection with 
 national education, that the people should 
 not lose such opportunities of making them- 
 selves acquainted with the manners and 
 customs of two most interesting species of 
 animals, the author submitted that some 
 measures should be immediately taken for 
 the restoration of these pleasing and truly 
 intellectual amusements. 
 
 " The President inquired by what means 
 the honourable member proposed to attain 
 this most desirable end ? 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 125 
 
 " The Author submitted that it could be 
 most fully and satisfactorily accomplished, if 
 Her Majesty's Government would cause to 
 be brought over to England, and maintained 
 at the public expense, and for the public 
 amusement, such a number of bears as would 
 enable every quarter of the town to be visited 
 — say at least by three bears a week. No 
 difficulty whatever need be experienced in 
 providing a fitting place for the reception of 
 these animals, as a commodious bear-garden 
 could be erected in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of both Houses of Parliament ; obvi- 
 ously the most proper and eligible spot for 
 such an establishment. 
 
 " Professor Mull doubted very much 
 whether any correct ideas of natural history 
 were propagated by the means to which the 
 honourable member had so ably adverted. 
 On the contrary, he believed that they had 
 been the means of diffusing very incorrect 
 and imperfect notions on the subject. He 
 
126 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 spoke from personal observation and personal 
 experience, when he said that many children 
 of great abilities had been induced to believe, 
 from what they had observed in the streets, 
 at and before the period to which the honour- 
 able gentleman had referred, that all monkeys 
 were born in red coats and spangles, and that 
 their hats and feathers also came by nature. 
 He wished to know distinctly whether the 
 honourable gentleman attributed the want of 
 encouragement the bears had met with to the 
 decline of public taste in that respect, or to 
 a want of ability on the part of the bears 
 themselves ? 
 
 " Mr. X. X. Misty replied, that he could 
 not bring himself to believe but that there 
 must be a great deal of floating talent among 
 the bears and monkeys generally ; which, in 
 the absence of any proper encouragement, 
 was dispersed in other directions. 
 
 " Professor Pumpkinskull wished to 
 take that opportunity of calling the attention 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 1 2 7 
 
 of the section to a most important and serious 
 point. The author of the treatise just read 
 had alluded to the prevalent taste for bears'- 
 grease as a means of promoting the growth 
 of hair, which undoubtedly was diffused to a 
 very great and (as it appeared to him) very 
 alarming extent. No gentleman attending 
 that section could fail to be aware of the fact 
 that the youth of the present age evinced, by 
 their behaviour in the streets, and at all places 
 of public resort, a considerable lack of that 
 gallantry and gentlemanly feeling which, in 
 more ignorant times, had been thought be- 
 coming. He wished to know whether it 
 were possible that a constant outward appli- 
 cation of bears '-grease by the young gentle- 
 men about town had imperceptibly infused 
 into those unhappy persons something of the 
 nature and quality of the bear. He shud- 
 dered as he threw out the remark ; but if 
 this theory, on inquiry, should prove to be 
 well-founded, it would at once explain a great 
 
128 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 deal of unpleasant eccentricity of behaviour, 
 which, without some such discovery, was 
 wholly unaccountable. 
 
 "The President highly complimented 
 the learned gentleman on his most valuable 
 suggestion, which produced the greatest effect 
 upon the assembly ; and remarked that only 
 a week previous he had seen some young 
 gentlemen at a theatre eyeing a box of ladies 
 with a fierce intensity, which nothing but 
 the influence of some brutish appetite could 
 possibly explain. It was dreadful to reflect 
 that our youth were so rapidly verging into a 
 generation of bears. 
 
 " After a scene of scientific enthusiasm it 
 was resolved that this important question 
 should be immediately submitted to the con- 
 sideration of the council. 
 
 " The President wished to know whe- 
 ther any gentleman could inform the section 
 what had become of the dancing- dogs ? 
 
 " A Member replied, after some hesit^- 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 129 
 
 tion, that on the day after three glee-singers 
 had been committed to prison as criminals 
 by a late most zealous police-magistrate of 
 the metropolis, the dogs had abandoned their 
 professional duties, and dispersed themselves 
 in different quarters of the town to gain a 
 livelihood by less dangerous means. He 
 was given to understand that since that 
 period they had supported themselves by 
 lying in wait for and robbing blind mens 
 poodles. 
 
 " Mr. Flummery exhibited a twig, claim- 
 ing to be a veritable branch of that noble 
 tree known to naturalists as the Shak- 
 speare, which has taken root in every land 
 and climate, and gathered under the shade of 
 its broad green boughs the great family of 
 mankind. The learned gentleman remarked 
 that the twig had been undoubtedly called by 
 other names in its time ; but that it had been 
 pointed out to him by an old lady in 
 Warwickshire, where the great tree had 
 
 9 
 
1 30 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 grown, as a shoot of the genuine Shakspeare, 
 by which name he begged to introduce it to 
 his countrymen. 
 
 " The President wished to know what 
 botanical definition the honourable gentleman 
 could afford of the curiosity. 
 
 " Mr. Flummery expressed his opinion 
 that it was a decided plant. 
 
 " Section B. — Display of Models and Mechanical 
 Science. 
 
 large room, boot-jack and countenance. 
 
 President — Mr. Mallett. Vice-Presidents — Messrs. Leaver 
 and Scroo. 
 
 " Mr. Crinkles exhibited a most beauti- 
 ful and delicate machine, of little larger size 
 than an ordinary snuff-box, manufactured 
 entirely by himself, and composed exclusively 
 of steel, by the aid of which more pockets 
 could be picked in one hour than by the pre- 
 sent slow and tedious process in four-and- 
 twenty. The inventor remarked that it had 
 been put into active operation in Fleet Street, 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 131 
 
 the Strand, and other thoroughfares, and had 
 never been once known to fail. 
 
 " After some slight delay, occasioned by 
 the various members of the section buttoning 
 their pockets, 
 
 " The President narrowly inspected the 
 invention, and declared that he had never 
 seen a machine of more beautiful or exquisite 
 construction. Would the inventor be good 
 enough to inform the section whether he had 
 taken any and what means for bringing it 
 into general operation ? 
 
 " Mr. Crinkles stated that, after en- 
 countering some preliminary difficulties, he 
 had succeeded in putting himself in communi- 
 cation with Mr. Fogle Hunter, and other 
 gentlemen connected with the swell mob, 
 who had awarded the invention the very 
 highest and most unqualified approbation. 
 He regretted to say, however, that these dis- 
 tinguished practitioners, in common with a 
 gentleman of the name of Gimlet-eyed 
 
132 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 Tommy, and other members of a secondary 
 grade of the profession whom he was under- 
 stood to represent, entertained an insuperable 
 objection to its being brought into general 
 use, on the ground that it would have the 
 inevitable effect of almost entirely super- 
 seding manual labour, and throwing a great 
 number of highly-deserving persons out of 
 employment. 
 
 " The President hoped that no such 
 fanciful objections would be allowed to stand 
 in the way of such a great public improve- 
 ment. 
 
 " Mr. Crinkles hoped so too ; but he 
 feared that if the gentlemen of the swell 
 mob persevered in their objection, nothing 
 could be done. 
 
 " Professor Grime suggested, that surely, 
 in that case, Her Majesty's government 
 might be prevailed upon to take it up. 
 
 " Mr. Crinkles said, that if the objection 
 were found to be insuperable he should apply 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 133 
 
 to parliament, which he thought could not 
 fail to recognise the utility of the invention. 
 
 " The President observed that, up to 
 this time parliament had certainly got on 
 very well without it ; but, as they did their 
 business on a very large scale, he had no 
 doubt they would gladly adopt the improve- 
 ment. His only fear was that the machine 
 might be worn out by constant working. 
 
 " Mr. Coppernose called the attention of 
 the section to a proposition of great magni- 
 tude and interest, illustrated by a vast num- 
 ber of models, and stated with much clearness 
 and perspicuity in a treatise entitled ' Practical 
 Suggestions on the necessity of providing 
 some harmless and wholesome relaxation for 
 the young noblemen of England/ His pro- 
 position was, that a space of ground of not 
 less than ten miles in length and four in 
 breadth should be purchased by a new com- 
 pany, to be incorporated by Act of Parlia- 
 ment, and inclosed by a brick wall of not less 
 
134 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 than twelve feet in height. He proposed 
 that it should be laid out with highway roads, 
 turnpikes, bridges, miniature villages, and 
 every object that could conduce to the com- 
 fort and glory of Four-in-hand Clubs, so that 
 they might be fairly presumed to require no 
 drive beyond it This delightful retreat 
 would be fitted up with most commodious 
 and extensive stables, for the convenience of 
 such of the nobility and gentry as had a taste 
 for ostlering, and with houses of entertain- 
 ment furnished in the most expensive and 
 handsome style. It would be further pro- 
 vided with whole streets of door-knockers 
 and bell-handles of extra size, so constructed 
 that they could be easily wrenched off at 
 night, and regularly screwed on again, by 
 attendants provided for the purpose, every 
 day. There would also be gas lamps of real 
 glass, which could be broken at a compara- 
 tively small expense per dozen, and a broad 
 and handsome foot pavement for gentlemen 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 135 
 
 to drive their cabriolets upon when they were 
 humorously disposed — for the full enjoyment 
 of which feat live pedestrians would be pro- 
 cured from the workhouse at a very small 
 charge per head. The place being inclosed, 
 and carefully screened from the intrusion of 
 the public, there would be no objection to 
 gentlemen laying aside any article of their 
 costume that was considered to interfere with 
 a pleasant frolic, or, indeed, to their walking 
 about without any costume at all, if they liked 
 that better. In short, every facility of enjoy- 
 ment would be afforded that the most gentle- 
 manly person could possibly desire. But as 
 even these advantages would be incomplete 
 unless there were some means provided of 
 enabling the nobility and gentry to display 
 their prowess when they sallied forth after 
 dinner, and as some inconvenience might be 
 experienced in the event of their being 
 reduced tp the necessity of pummelling each 
 other, the inventor had turned his attention 
 
136 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 to the construction of an entirely new police 
 force, composed exclusively of automaton 
 figures, which, with the assistance of the 
 ingenious Signor Gagliardi, of Windmill- 
 street, in the Haymarket, he had succeeded 
 in making with such nicety, that a policeman, 
 cab-driver, or old woman, made upon the 
 principle of the models exhibited, would walk 
 about until knocked down like any real man ; 
 nay, more, if set upon and beaten by six or 
 eight noblemen or gentlemen, after it was 
 down, the figure would utter divers groans, 
 mingled with entreaties for mercy, thus 
 rendering the illusion complete, and the 
 enjoyment perfect. But the invention did 
 not stop even here ; for station-houses would 
 be built, containing good beds for noblemen 
 and gentlemen during the night, and in the 
 morning they would repair to a commodious 
 police office, where a pantomimic investiga- 
 tion would take place before the automaton 
 magistrates, — quite equal to life, — who would 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 1 3 7 
 
 fine them in so many counters, with which 
 they would be previously provided for the 
 purpose. This office would be furnished 
 with an inclined plane, for the convenience of 
 any nobleman or gentleman who might wish 
 to bring in his horse as a witness ; and the 
 prisoners would be at perfect liberty, as they 
 were now, to interrupt the complainants as 
 much as they pleased, and to make any 
 remarks that they thought proper. The 
 charge for these amusements would amount 
 to very little more than they already cost, 
 and the inventor submitted that the public 
 would be much benefited and comforted by 
 the proposed arrangement. 
 
 " Professor Nogo wished to be informed 
 what amount of automaton police force it was 
 proposed to raise in the first instance. 
 
 " Mr. Coppernose replied, that it was 
 proposed to begin with seven divisions of 
 police of a score each, lettered from A to G 
 inclusive. It was proposed that not more 
 
1 38 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 than half this number should be placed on 
 active duty, and that the remainder should be 
 kept on shelves in the police office ready to 
 be called out at a moment's notice. 
 
 " The President, awarding the utmost 
 merit to the ingenious gentleman who had 
 originated the idea, doubted whether the 
 automaton police would quite answer the 
 purpose. He feared that noblemen and 
 gentlemen would perhaps require the excite- 
 ment of threshing living subjects. 
 
 " Mr. Coppernose submitted, that as the 
 usual odds in such cases were ten noblemen 
 or gentlemen to one policeman or cab-driver, 
 it could make very little difference in point 
 of excitement whether the policeman or cab- 
 driver were a man or a block. The great 
 advantage would be, that a policeman's limbs 
 might be all knocked off, and yet he would be 
 in a condition to do duty next day. He might 
 even give his evidence next morning with 
 his head in his hand, and give it equally well, 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 139 
 
 " Professor Muff. — Will you allow me 
 to ask you, sir, of what materials it is in- 
 tended that the magistrates' heads shall be 
 composed ? 
 
 " Mr. Coppernose. — The magistrates will 
 have wooden heads of course, and they 
 will be made of the toughest and thickest 
 materials that can possibly be obtained. 
 
 " Professor Muff. — I am quite satisfied. 
 This is a great invention. 
 
 " Professor Nogo. — I see but one objec- 
 tion to it. It appears to me that the magis- 
 trates ought to talk. 
 
 " Mr. Coppernose no sooner heard this 
 suggestion than he touched a small spring in 
 each of the two models of magistrates which 
 were placed upon the table ; one of the 
 figures immediately began to exclaim with 
 great volubility that he was sorry to see 
 gentlemen in such a situation, and the other 
 to express a fear that the policeman was 
 intoxicated. 
 
140 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 " The section, as with one accord, de- 
 clared with a shout of applause that the 
 invention was complete ; and the President, 
 much excited, retired with Mr. Coppernose 
 to lay it before the council. On his return, 
 
 " Mr. Tickle displayed his newly-in- 
 vented spectacles, which enabled the wearer 
 to discern, in very bright colours, objects at 
 a great distance, and rendered him wholly 
 blind to those immediately before him. It 
 was, he said, a most valuable and useful in- 
 vention, based strictly upon the principle of 
 the human eye. 
 
 " The President required some informa- 
 tion upon this point. He had yet to learn 
 that the human eye was remarkable for the 
 peculiarities of which the honourable gentle- 
 man had spoken. 
 
 " Mr. Tickle was rather astonished to 
 hear this, when the President could not fail 
 to be aware that a large number of most 
 excellent persons and great statesmen could 
 
of the Mttdfog Association. 1 4 1 
 
 see, with the naked eye, most marvellous 
 horrors on West India plantations, while they 
 could discern nothing whatever in the interior 
 of Manchester cotton mills. He must know, 
 too, with what quickness of perception most 
 people could discover their neighbours faults, 
 and how very blind they were to their own. 
 If the President differed from the great 
 majority of men in this respect, his eye was 
 a defective one, and it was to assist his vision 
 that these glasses were made. 
 
 " Mr. Blank exhibited a model of a 
 fashionable annual, composed of copper- 
 plates, gold leaf, and silk boards, and worked 
 entirely by milk and water. 
 
 " Mr. Prosee, after examining the ma- 
 chine, declared it to be so ingeniously com- 
 posed, that he was wholly unable to discover 
 how it went on at all. 
 
 " Mr. Blank. — Nobody can, and that is 
 the beauty of it. 
 
142 Report of the Second Meeting 
 " Section C. — Anatomy and Medicine. 
 
 BAR ROOM, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. 
 
 President — Dr. Soemup. Vice-Presidents — Messrs. Pessell 
 and Mortair. 
 
 " Dr. Grummidge stated to the section a 
 
 most interesting case of monomania, and 
 
 described the course of treatment he had 
 
 pursued with perfect success. The patient 
 
 was a married lady in the middle rank of life, 
 
 who, having seen another lady at an evening 
 
 party in a full suit of pearls, was suddenly 
 
 seized with a desire to possess a similar 
 
 equipment, although her husband's finances 
 
 were by no means equal to the necessary 
 
 outlay. Finding her wish ungratified, she 
 
 fell sick, and the symptoms soon became so 
 
 alarming, that he (Dr. Grummidge) was 
 
 called in. At this period the prominent 
 
 tokens of the disorder were sullenness, a total 
 
 indisposition to perform domestic duties, great 
 
 peevishness, and extreme languor, except 
 
 when pearls were mentioned, at which times 
 
of the Mtidfog Association. 143 
 
 the pulse quickened, the eyes grew brighter, 
 the pupils dilated, and the patient, after vari- 
 ous incoherent exclamations, burst into a 
 passion of tears, and exclaimed that nobody 
 cared for her, and that she wished herself 
 dead. Finding that the patient's appetite 
 was affected in the presence of company, he 
 began by ordering a total abstinence from all 
 stimulants, and forbidding any sustenance but 
 weak gruel ; he then took twenty ounces of 
 blood, applied a blister under each ear, one 
 upon the chest, and another on the back ; 
 having done which, and administered five 
 grains of calomel, he left the patient to her 
 repose. The next day she was somewhat 
 low, but decidedly better, and all appearances 
 of irritation were removed. The next day 
 she improved still further, and on the next 
 again. On the fourth there was some 
 appearance of a return of the old symptoms, 
 which no sooner developed themselves, than 
 he administered another dose of calomel, and 
 
144 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 left strict orders that, unless a decidedly 
 favourable change occurred within two hours, 
 the patient's head should be immediately 
 shaved to the very last curl From that 
 moment she began to mend, and, in less than 
 four-and-twenty hours was perfectly restored. 
 She did not now betray the least emotion at 
 the sight or mention of pearls or any other 
 ornaments. She was cheerful and good- 
 humoured, and a most beneficial change had 
 been effected in her whole temperament and 
 condition. 
 
 "Mr. Pipkin (M.R.C.S.) read a short 
 but most interesting communication in which 
 he sought to prove the complete belief of 
 Sir William Courtenay, otherwise Thorn, 
 recently shot at Canterbury, in the Homoeo- 
 pathic system. The section would bear in 
 mind that one of the Homoeopathic doctrines 
 was, that infinitesimal doses of any medicine 
 which would occasion the disease under which 
 the patient laboured, supposing him to be in 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 145 
 
 a healthy state, would cure it. , Now, it was 
 a remarkable circumstance — proved in the 
 evidence — that the deceased Thorn employed 
 a woman to follow him about all day with a 
 pail of water, assuring her that one drop (a 
 purely homoeopathic remedy, the section 
 would observe), placed upon his tongue, after 
 death, would restore him. What was the 
 obvious inference ? That Thorn, who was 
 marching and countermarching in osier beds, 
 and other swampy places, was impressed with 
 a presentiment that he should be drowned ; 
 in which case, had his instructions been com- 
 plied with, he could not fail to have been 
 brought to life again instantly by his own 
 prescription. As it was, if this woman, or 
 any other person, had administered an infini- 
 tesimal dose of lead and gunpowder imme- 
 diately after he fell, he would have recovered 
 forthwith. But unhappily the woman con- 
 cerned did not possess the power of reason- 
 ing by analogy, or carrying out a principle, 
 
 10 
 
146 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 and thus the unfortunate gentleman had been 
 sacrificed to the ignorance of the peasantry. 
 
 " Section D. — Statistics. 
 
 OUT-HOUSE, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. 
 
 President — Mr. Slug. Vice-Presidents — Messrs. Noakes 
 and Styles. 
 
 " Mr. Kwakley stated the result of some 
 most ingenious statistical inquiries relative 
 to the difference between the value of the 
 qualification of several members of Parlia- 
 ment as published to the world, and its real 
 nature and amount. After reminding the 
 section that every member of Parliament for 
 a town or borough was supposed to possess a 
 clear freehold estate of three hundred pounds 
 per annum, the honourable gentleman ex- 
 cited great amusement and laughter by 
 stating the exact amount of freehold pro- 
 perty possessed by a column of legislators, 
 in which he had included himself. It ap- 
 peared from this table, that the amount of 
 such income possessed by each was o pounds, 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 147 
 
 o shillings, and o pence, yielding an average 
 of the same. (Great laughter.) It was 
 pretty well known that there were accommo- 
 dating gentlemen in the habit of furnishing 
 new members with temporary qualifications, 
 to the ownership of which they swore 
 solemnly — of course as a mere matter of 
 form. He argued from these data that it 
 was wholly unnecessary for members of 
 Parliament to possess any property at all, 
 especially as when they had none the public 
 could get them so much cheaper. 
 
 "Supplementary Section, E. — Umbugology and 
 
 DlTCHWATERISICS. 
 
 President — Mr. Grub. Vice-Presidents — Messrs. Dull and 
 Dummy. 
 
 ? A paper was read by the secretary 
 descriptive of a bay pony with one eye, which 
 had been seen by the author standing in a 
 butchers cart at the corner of Newgate 
 Market. The communication described the 
 author of the paper as having, in the prose- 
 
148 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 cution of a mercantile pursuit, betaken him- 
 self one Saturday morning last summer from 
 Somers Town to Cheapside ; in the course 
 of which expedition he had beheld the 
 extraordinary appearance above described. 
 The pony had one distinct eye, and it had 
 been pointed out to him by his friend Captain 
 Blunderbore, of the Horse Marines, who 
 assisted the author in his search, that when- 
 ever he winked this eye he whisked his tail 
 (possibly to drive the flies off), but that he 
 always winked and whisked at the same time. 
 The animal was lean, spavined, and tottering ; 
 and the author proposed to constitute it of 
 the family of Fitfordogsrneataurious. It cer- 
 tainly did occur to him that there was no case 
 on record of a pony with one clearly-defined 
 and distinct organ of vision, winking and 
 whisking at the same moment. 
 
 " Mr. Q. J. Snuffletoffle had heard of 
 a pony winking his eye, and likewise of a 
 pony whisking his tail, but whether they were 
 
of the Mudfog Association. 149 
 
 two ponies or the same pony he could not 
 undertake positively to say. At all events, 
 he was acquainted with no authenticated 
 instance of a simultaneous winking and 
 whisking, and he really could not but doubt 
 the existence of such a marvellous pony in 
 opposition to all those natural laws by which 
 ponies were governed. Referring, however, 
 to the mere question of his one organ of 
 vision, might he suggest the possibility of 
 this pony having been literally half asleep at 
 the time he was seen, and having closed only 
 one eye. 
 
 " The President observed that, whether 
 the pony was half asleep or fast asleep, there 
 could be no doubt that the association was 
 wide awake, and therefore that they had 
 better get the business over, and go to dinner. 
 He had certainly never seen anything analo- 
 gous to this pony, but he was not prepared 
 to doubt its existence ; for he had seen many 
 queerer ponies in his time, though he did not 
 
150 Report of the Second Meeting 
 
 pretend to have seen any more remarkable 
 donkeys than the other gentlemen around 
 him. 
 
 "Professor John Ketch was then called 
 upon to exhibit the skull of the late Mr. 
 Greenacre, which he produced from a blue 
 bag, remarking, on being invited to make any 
 observations that occurred to him, ' that he'd 
 pound it as that 'ere 'spectable section had 
 never seed a more gamerer cove nor he vos.' 
 
 " A most animated discussion upon this 
 interesting relic ensued ; and, some difference 
 of opinion arising respecting the real charac- 
 ter of the deceased gentleman, Mr. Blubb 
 delivered a lecture upon the cranium before 
 him, clearly showing that Mr. Greenacre 
 possessed the organ of destructiveness to a 
 most unusual extent, with a most remarkable 
 development of the organ of carveativeness. 
 Sir Hookham Snivey w r as proceeding to 
 combat this opinion, when Professor Ketch 
 suddenly interrupted the proceedings by 
 
of the Mttdfog Association. 151 
 
 exclaiming, with great excitement of manner, 
 \ Walker ! ' 
 
 " The President begged to call the 
 learned gentleman to order. 
 
 " Professor Ketch. ' Order be Mowed ! 
 you've got the wrong un, I tell you. It ain't 
 no e'd at all ; it's a coker-nut as my brother-in- 
 law has been a-carvin', to hornament his new 
 baked tatur-stall wots a-comin down 'ere vile 
 the 'sociation's in the town. Hand over, vill 
 you ? ' 
 
 "With these words, Professor Ketch 
 hastily repossessed himself of the cocoa-nut, 
 and drew forth the skull, in mistake for which 
 he had exhibited it. A most interesting con- 
 versation ensued ; but as there appeared some 
 doubt ultimately whether the skull was Mr. 
 Greenacre's, or a hospital patient's, or a 
 paupers, or a man's, or a woman's, or a 
 monkey's, no particular result was obtained." 
 
 " I cannot," says our talented correspon- 
 
152 Report of the Second Meeting *, etc. 
 
 dent in conclusion, " I cannot close my 
 account of these) gigantic researches and 
 sublime and noble triumphs without repeating 
 a bon mot of Professor Woodensconce's, which 
 shows how the greatest minds may occasion- 
 ally unbend when truth can be presented to 
 listening ears, clothed in an attractive and 
 playful form. I was standing by, when, after 
 a week of feasting and feeding, that learned 
 gentleman, accompanied by the whole body 
 of wonderful men, entered the hall yesterday, 
 where a sumptuous dinner was prepared ; 
 where the richest wines sparkled on the 
 board, and fat bucks — propitiatory sacrifices 
 to learning — sent forth their savoury odours. 
 * Ah ! ' said Professor Woodensconce, rubbing 
 his hands, * this is what we meet for ; this is 
 what inspires us ; this is what keeps us to- 
 gether, and beckons us onward ; this is the 
 spread of science, and a glorious spread it is/ ' 
 
THE PANTOMIME OF LIFE. 
 
 Before we plunge headlong into this paper, 
 let us at once confess to a fondness for panto- 
 mimes — to a gentle sympathy with clowns 
 and pantaloons — to an unqualified admira- 
 tion of harlequins and columbines — to a 
 chaste delight in every action of their brief 
 existence, varied and many-coloured as those 
 actions are, and inconsistent though they 
 occasionally be with those rigid and formal 
 rules of propriety which regulate the pro- 
 ceedings of meaner and less comprehensive 
 minds. We revel in pantomimes — not be- 
 cause they dazzle one's eyes with tinsel and 
 gold leaf; not because they present to us, 
 once again, the well-beloved chalked faces, 
 and goggle eyes of our childhood ; not even 
 because, like Christmas-day, and Twelfth- 
 
154 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 night, and Shrove-Tuesday, and ones own 
 birthday, they come to us but once a year ; 
 — our attachment is founded on a graver and 
 a very different reason. A pantomime is to 
 us, a mirror of life ; nay more, we maintain 
 that it is so to audiences generally, although 
 they are not aware of it, and that this very 
 circumstance is the secret cause of their 
 amusement and delight. 
 
 Let us take a slight example. The scene 
 is a street : an elderly gentleman, with a large 
 face and strongly marked features, appears. 
 His countenance beams with a sunny smile, 
 and a perpetual dimple is on his broad, red 
 cheek. He is evidently an opulent elderly 
 gentleman, comfortable in circumstances, and 
 well-to-do in the world. He is not unmindful 
 of the adornment of his person, for he is 
 richly, not to say gaudily, dressed ; and that 
 he indulges to a reasonable extent in the 
 pleasures of the table may be inferred from 
 the joyous and oily manner in which he rubs 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 155 
 
 his stomach, by way of informing the audi- 
 ence that he is £oin£ home to dinner. In 
 the fulness of his heart, in the fancied secu- 
 rity of wealth, in the possession and enjoy- 
 ment of all the good things of life, the elderly 
 gentleman suddenly loses his footing, and 
 stumbles. How the audience roar ! He is 
 set upon by a noisy and officious crowd, who 
 buffet and cuff him unmercifully. They 
 scream with delight ! Every time the elderly 
 gentleman struggles to get up, his relentless 
 persecutors knock him down again. The 
 spectators are convulsed with merriment ! 
 And when at last the elderly gentleman does 
 get up, and staggers away, despoiled of hat, 
 wig, and clothing, himself battered to pieces, 
 and his watch and money gone, they are 
 exhausted with laughter, and express their 
 merriment and admiration in rounds of ap- 
 plause. 
 
 Is this like life ? Change the scene to 
 any real street ; — to the Stock Exchange, or 
 
156 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 the City bankers ; the merchant's counting- 
 house, or even the tradesman's shop. See 
 any one of these men fall, — the more sud- 
 denly, and the nearer the zenith of his pride 
 and riches, the better. What a wild hallo is 
 raised over his prostrate carcase by the 
 shouting mob ; how they whoop and yell as 
 he lies humbled beneath them ! Mark how 
 eagerly they set upon him when he is down ; 
 and how they mock and deride him as he 
 slinks away. Why, it is the pantomime to 
 the very letter. 
 
 Of all the pantomimic dramatis personce, 
 we consider the pantaloon the most worthless 
 and debauched. Independent of the dislike 
 one naturally feels at seeing a gentleman of 
 his years engaged in pursuits highly unbe- 
 coming his gravity and time of life, we cannot 
 conceal from ourselves the fact that he is a 
 treacherous, worldly-minded old villain, con- 
 stantly enticing his younger companion, the 
 clown, into acts of fraud or petty larceny, and 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 157 
 
 generally standing aside to watch the result 
 of the enterprise. If it be successful, he 
 never forgets to return for his share of the 
 spoil ; but if it turn out a failure, he generally 
 retires with remarkable caution and expedi- 
 tion, and keeps carefully aloof until the affair 
 has blown over. His amorous propensities, 
 too, are eminently disagreeable ; and his 
 mode of addressing ladies in the open street 
 at noon-day is downright improper, being 
 usually neither more nor less than a percep- 
 tible tickling of the aforesaid ladies in the 
 waist, after committing which, he starts back, 
 manifestly ashamed (as well he may be) of 
 his own indecorum and temerity ; continuing, 
 nevertheless, to ogle and beckon to them 
 from a distance in a very unpleasant and 
 immoral manner. 
 
 Is there any man who cannot count a 
 dozen pantaloons in his own social circle ? 
 Is there any man who has not seen them 
 swarming at the west end of the town on a 
 
158 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 sunshiny day or a summer's evening, going 
 through the last-named pantomimic feats with 
 as much liquorish energy, and as total an 
 absence of reserve, as if they were on the very 
 stage itself ? We can tell upon our fingers 
 a dozen pantaloons of our acquaintance at 
 this moment — capital pantaloons, who have 
 been performing all kinds of strange freaks, 
 to the great amusement of their friends and 
 acquaintance, for years past ; and who to this 
 day are making such comical and ineffectual 
 attempts to be young and dissolute, that all 
 beholders are like to die with laughter. 
 
 Take that old gentleman who has just 
 emerged from the Cafd de F Europe in the 
 Haymarket, where he has been dining at the 
 expense of the young man upon town with 
 whom he shakes hands as they part at the 
 door of the tavern. The affected warmth of 
 that shake of the hand, the courteous nod, 
 the obvious recollection of the dinner, the 
 savoury flavour of which still hangs upon his 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 159 
 
 lips, are all characteristics of his great proto- 
 type. He hobbles away humming an opera 
 tune, and twirling his cane to and fro, with 
 affected carelessness. Suddenly he stops — 
 'tis at the milliner's window. He peeps 
 through one of the large panes of glass ; 
 and, his view of the ladies within being 
 obstructed by the India shawls, directs his 
 attentions to the young girl with the band- 
 box in her hand, who is gazing in at the 
 window also. See ! he draws beside her. 
 He coughs; she turns away from him. He 
 draws near her again ; she disregards him. 
 He gleefully chucks her under the chin, and, 
 retreating a few steps, nods and beckons 
 with fantastic grimaces, while the girl be- 
 stows a contemptuous and supercilious look 
 upon his wrinkled visage. She turns away 
 with a flounce, and the old gentleman trots 
 after her with a toothless chuckle. The 
 pantaloon to the life ! 
 
 But the close resemblance which the 
 
160 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 clowns of the stage bear to those of every- 
 day life is perfectly extraordinary. Some 
 people talk with a sigh of the decline of 
 pantomime, and murmur in low and dismal 
 tones the name of Grimaldi. We mean no 
 disparagement to the worthy and excellent 
 old man when we say that this is downright 
 nonsense. Clowns that beat Grimaldi all to 
 nothing turn up every day, and nobody 
 patronizes them — more's the pity ! 
 
 11 I know who you mean," says some 
 dirty-faced patron of Mr. Osbaldistone's, 
 laying down the Miscellany when he has 
 got thus far, and bestowing upon vacancy a 
 most knowing glance ; " you mean C. J. Smith 
 as did Guy Fawkes, and George Barnwell at 
 the Garden." The dirty-faced gentleman 
 has hardly uttered the words, when he is 
 interrupted by a young gentleman in no shirt- 
 collar and a Petersham coat. " No, no," says 
 the young gentleman ; " he means Brown, 
 King, and Gibson, at the 'Delphi." Now, 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 1 6 1 
 
 with great deference both to the first-named 
 gentleman with the dirty face, and the last- 
 named gentleman in the non-existing shirt- 
 collar, we do not mean either the performer 
 who so grotesquely burlesqued the Popish 
 conspirator, or the three unchangeables who 
 have been dancing the same dance under 
 different imposing titles, and doing the same 
 thing under various high-sounding names for 
 some five or six years last past. We have 
 no sooner made this avowal, than the public, 
 who have hitherto been silent witnesses of 
 the dispute, inquire what on earth it is we 
 do mean ; and, with becoming respect, we 
 proceed to tell them. 
 
 It is very well known to all playgoers 
 and pantomime-seers, that the scenes in 
 which a theatrical clown is at the very height 
 of his glory are those which are described 
 in the play-bills as " Cheesemonger's shop 
 and Crockery warehouse/' or " Tailor's shop, 
 and Mrs. Queertable's boarding-house," or 
 
 ii 
 
1 62 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 places bearing some such title, where the 
 great fun of the thing consists in the hero's 
 taking lodgings which he has not the 
 slightest intention of paying for, or obtaining 
 goods under false pretences, or abstracting 
 the stock-in-trade of the respectable shop- 
 keeper next door, or robbing warehouse 
 porters as they pass under his window, or, 
 to shorten the catalogue, in his swindling 
 everybody he possibly can, it only remaining 
 to be observed that, the more extensive the 
 swindling is, and the more barefaced the 
 impudence of the swindler, the greater the 
 rapture and ecstksy of the audience. Now 
 it is a most remarkable fact that precisely this 
 sort of thing occurs in real life day after day, 
 and nobody sees the humour of it Let us 
 illustrate our position by detailing the plot of 
 this portion of the pantomime — not of the 
 theatre, but of life. 
 
 The Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker 
 Fiercy, attended by his livery servant Do'em 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 163 
 
 — a most respectable servant to look at, who 
 has grown grey in the service of the captain's 
 family — views, treats for, and ultimately ob- 
 tains possession of, the unfurnished house, 
 such a number, such a street. All the trades- 
 men in the neighbourhood are in agonies of 
 competition for the captain's custom ; the 
 captain is a good-natured, kind-hearted, easy 
 man, and, to avoid being the cause of disap- 
 pointment to any, he most handsomely gives 
 orders to all. Hampers of wine, baskets of 
 provisions, cart-loads of furniture, boxes of 
 jewellery, supplies of luxuries of the costliest 
 description, flock to the house of the Honour- 
 able Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, where 
 they are received with the utmost readiness 
 by the highly respectable Do'em ; while the 
 captain himself struts and swaggers about 
 with that compound air of conscious superi- 
 ority and general blood-thirstiness which a 
 military captain should always, and does most 
 times, wear, to the admiration and terror of 
 
1 64 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 plebeian men. But the tradesmen's backs 
 are no sooner turned, than the captain, with 
 all the eccentricity of a mighty mind, and 
 assisted by the faithful Do'em, whose devoted 
 fidelity is not the least touching part of his 
 character, disposes of everything to great 
 advantage ; for, although the articles fetch 
 small sums, still they are sold considerably 
 above cost price, the cost to the captain 
 having been nothing at all. After various 
 manoeuvres, the imposture is discovered, 
 Fitz-Fiercy and Do'em are recognized as con- 
 federates, and the police office to which they 
 are both taken is thronged with their dupes. 
 Who can fail to recognise in this, the 
 exact counterpart of the best portion of a 
 theatrical pantomime — Fitz-Whisker Fiercy 
 by the clown ; Do'em by the pantaloon ; and 
 supernumeraries by the tradesmen ? The 
 best of the joke, too, is, that the very coal- 
 merchant who is loudest in his complaints 
 against the person who defrauded him, is the 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 165 
 
 identical man who sat in the centre of the 
 very front row of the pit last night and 
 laughed the most boisterously at this very 
 same thing, — and not so well done either. 
 Talk of Grimaldi, we say again ! Did 
 Grimaldi, in his best days, ever do anything 
 in this way equal to Da Costa ? 
 
 The mention of this latter justly cele- 
 brated clown reminds us of his last piece of 
 humour, the fraudulently obtaining certain 
 stamped acceptances from a young gentleman 
 in the army. We had scarcely laid down our 
 pen to contemplate for a few moments this 
 admirable actor's performance of that ex 
 quisite practical joke, than a new branch of 
 our subject flashed suddenly upon us. So we 
 take it up again at once. 
 
 All people who have been behind the 
 scenes, and most people who have been 
 before them, know, that in the representation 
 of a pantomime, a good many men are sent 
 upon the stage for the express purpose of 
 
1 66 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 being cheated, or knocked down, or both. 
 Now, down to a moment ago, we had never 
 been able to understand for what possible 
 purpose a great number of odd, lazy, large- 
 headed men, whom one is in the habit of 
 meeting here, and there, and everywhere, 
 could ever have been created. We see it all, 
 now. They are the supernumeraries in the 
 pantomime of life ; the men who have been 
 thrust into it, with no other view than to 
 be constantly tumbling over each other, and 
 running their heads against all sorts of 
 strange things. We sat opposite to one of 
 these men at a supper-table, only last week. 
 Now we think of it, he was exactly like the 
 gentlemen with the pasteboard heads and 
 faces, who do the corresponding business in 
 the theatrical pantomimes ; there was the 
 same broad stolid simper — the same dull 
 leaden eye — the same unmeaning, vacant 
 stare ; and whatever was said, or whatever 
 was done, he always came in at precisely the 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 167 
 
 wrong place, or jostled against something that 
 he had not the slightest business with. We 
 looked at the man across the table again and 
 again ; and could not satisfy ourselves what 
 race of beings to class him with. How very 
 odd that this never occurred to us before ! 
 
 We will frankly own that we have been 
 much troubled with the harlequin. We see 
 harlequins of so many kinds in the real living 
 pantomime, that we hardly know which to 
 select as the proper fellow of him of the 
 theatres. At one time we were disposed to 
 think that the harlequin was neither more nor 
 less than a young man of family and inde- 
 pendent property, who had run away with an 
 opera dancer, and was fooling his life and his 
 means away in light and trivial amusements. 
 On reflection, however, we remembered that 
 harlequins are occasionally guilty of witty, 
 and even clever acts, and we are rather dis- 
 posed to acquit our young men of family and 
 independent property, generally speaking, of 
 
1 68 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 any such misdemeanours. On a more mature 
 consideration of the subject, we have arrived 
 at the conclusion that the harlequins of life 
 are just ordinary men, to be found in no par- 
 ticular walk or degree, on whom a certain 
 station, or particular conjunction of circum- 
 stances, confers the magic wand. And this 
 brings us to a few words on the pantomime 
 of public and political life, which we shall say 
 at once, and then conclude — merely premising 
 in this place that we decline any reference 
 whatever to the columbine, being in no wise 
 satisfied of the nature of her connection with 
 her parti-coloured lover, and not feeling by 
 any means clear that we should be justified 
 in introducing her to the virtuous and re- 
 spectable ladies who peruse our lucubrations. 
 We take it that the commencement of a 
 Session of Parliament is neither more nor 
 less than the drawing up of the curtain for 
 a grand comic pantomime, and that his 
 Majesty's most gracious speech on the open- 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 1 69 
 
 ing thereof may be not inaptly compared to 
 the clown's opening speech of " Here we 
 are ! " " My lords and gentlemen, here we 
 are ! " appears, to our mind at least, to be a 
 very good abstract of the point and meaning 
 of the propitiatory address of the ministry. 
 When we remember how frequently this 
 speech is made, immediately after the change 
 too, the parallel is quite perfect, and still more 
 singular. 
 
 Perhaps the cast of our political panto- 
 mime never was richer than at this day. We 
 are particularly strong in clowns. At no 
 former time, we should say, have we had 
 such astonishing tumblers, or performers so 
 ready to go through the whole of their feats 
 for the amusement of an admiring throng. 
 Their extreme readiness to exhibit, indeed, 
 has given rise to some ill-natured reflections ; 
 it having been objected that by exhibiting 
 gratuitously through the country when the 
 theatre is closed, they reduce themselves to 
 
1 7° The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 the level of mountebanks, and thereby tend 
 to degrade the respectability of the profes- 
 sion. Certainly Grimaldi never did this sort 
 of thing ; and though Brown, King, and 
 Gibson have gone to the Surrey in vacation 
 time, and Mr. C. J. Smith has ruralised at 
 Sadler's Wells, we find no theatrical prece- 
 dent for a general tumbling through the 
 country, except in the gentleman, name un- 
 known, who threw summersets on behalf of 
 the late Mr. Richardson, and who is no 
 authority either, because he had never been 
 on the regular boards. 
 
 But, laying aside this question, which after 
 all is a mere matter of taste, we may reflect 
 with pride and gratification of heart on the 
 proficiency of our clowns as exhibited in the 
 season. Night after night will they twist and 
 tumble about, till two, three, and four o'clock 
 in the morning ; playing the strangest antics, 
 and giving each other the funniest slaps on 
 the face that can possibly be imagined, with- 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 171 
 
 out evincing the smallest tokens of fatigue. 
 The strange noises, the confusion, the shout- 
 ing and roaring, amid which all this is done, 
 too, would put to shame the most turbulent 
 sixpenny gallery that ever yelled through a 
 boxing-night. 
 
 It is especially curious to behold one of 
 these clowns compelled to go through the 
 most surprising contortions by the irresistible 
 influence of the wand of office, which his 
 leader or harlequin holds above his head. 
 Acted upon by this wonderful charm he will 
 become perfectly motionless, moving neither 
 hand, foot, nor finger, and will even lose the 
 faculty of speech at an instant's notice ; or 
 on the other hand, he will become all life and 
 animation if required, pouring forth a torrent 
 of words without sense or meaning, throwing 
 himself into the wildest and most fantastic 
 contortions, and even grovelling on the earth 
 and licking up the dust. These exhibitions 
 are more curious than pleasing ; indeed, they 
 
172 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
 are rather disgusting than otherwise, except 
 to the admirers of such things, with whom 
 we confess we have no fellow-feeling. 
 
 Strange tricks — very strange tricks — are 
 also performed by the harlequin who holds 
 for the time being the magic wand which we 
 have just mentioned. The mere waving it 
 before a mans eyes will dispossess his brains 
 of all the notions previously stored there, 
 and fill it with an entirely new set of ideas ; 
 one gentle tap on the back will alter the 
 colour of a man's coat completely ; and there 
 are some expert performers, who, having 
 this wand held first on one side and then on 
 the other, will change from side to side, turn- 
 ing their coats at every evolution, with so 
 much rapidity and dexterity, that the quickest 
 eye can scarcely detect their motions. Occa- 
 sionally, the genius who confers the wand, 
 wrests it from the hand of the temporary 
 possessor, and consigns it to some new per- 
 former ; on which occasions all the charac- 
 
The Pantomime of Life. 1 73 
 
 ters change sides, and then the race and the 
 hard knocks begin anew. 
 
 We might have extended this chapter to 
 a much greater length — we might have 
 carried the comparison into the liberal pro- 
 fessions — we might have shown, as was in 
 fact our original purpose, that each is in 
 itself a little pantomime with scenes and 
 characters of its own, complete ; but, as we 
 fear we have been quite lengthy enough 
 already, we shall leave this chapter just 
 where it is. A gentleman, not altogether 
 unknown as a dramatic poet, wrote thus a 
 year or two ago — 
 
 " All the world's a stage, 
 And all the men and women merely players :" 
 
 and we, tracking out his footsteps at the 
 scarcely-worth-mentioning little distance of 
 a few millions of leagues behind, venture to 
 add, by way of new reading, that he meant a 
 Pantomime, and that we are all actors in 
 The Pantomime of Life. 
 
SOME PARTICULARS CONCERNING 
 A LION. 
 
 We have a great respect for lions in the 
 abstract. In common with most other people, 
 we have heard and read of many instances 
 of their bravery and generosity. We have 
 duly admired that heroic self-denial and 
 charming philanthropy which prompts them 
 never to eat people except when they are 
 hungry, and we have been deeply impressed 
 with a becoming sense of the politeness they 
 are said to display towards unmarried ladies 
 of a certain state. All natural histories teem 
 with anecdotes illustrative of their excellent 
 qualities ; and one old spelling book in par- 
 ticular recounts a touching instance of an old 
 lion, of high moral dignity and stern prin- 
 ciple, who felt it his imperative duty to 
 
Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 175 
 
 devour a young man who had contracted a 
 habit of swearing, as a striking example to 
 the rising generation. 
 
 All this is extremely pleasant to reflect 
 upon, and, indeed, says a very great deal in 
 favour of lions as a mass. We are bound to 
 state, however, that such individual lions as 
 we have happened to fall in with have not 
 put forth any very striking characteristics, 
 and have not acted up to the chivalrous cha- 
 racter assigned them by their chroniclers. 
 We never saw a lion in what is called his 
 natural state, certainly ; that is to say, we 
 have never met a lion out walking in a forest, 
 or crouching in his lair under a tropical sun, 
 waiting till his dinner should happen to come 
 by, hot from the baker's. But we have seen 
 some under the influence of captivity, and the 
 pressure of misfortune ; and we must say 
 that they appeared to us very apathetic, 
 heavy-headed fellows. 
 
 The lion at the Zoological Gardens, for 
 
1 76 Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 
 
 instance. He is all very well ; he has an 
 undeniable mane, and looks very fierce ; but, 
 Lord bless us ! what of that ? The lions of 
 the fashionable world look just as ferocious, 
 and are the most harmless creatures breath- 
 ing. A box-lobby lion or a Regent-street 
 animal will put on a most terrible aspect, and 
 roar fearfully, if you affront him ; but he 
 will never bite, and, if you offer to attack 
 him manfully, will fairly turn tail and sneak 
 off. Doubtless these creatures roam about 
 sometimes in herds, and, if they meet any 
 especially meek-looking and peaceably-dis- 
 posed fellow, will endeavour to frighten him ; 
 but the faintest show of a vigorous resistance 
 is sufficient to scare them even then. These 
 are pleasant characteristics, whereas we make 
 it matter of distinct charge against the Zoo- 
 logical lion and his brethren at the fairs, that 
 they are sleepy, dreamy, sluggish quadru- 
 peds. 
 
 We do not remember to have ever seen 
 
Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 177 
 
 one of them perfectly awake, except at feed- 
 ing-time. In every respect we uphold the 
 biped lions against their four-footed name- 
 sakes, and we boldly challenge controversy 
 upon the subject. 
 
 With these opinions it may be easily 
 imagined that our curiosity and interest were 
 very much excited the other day, when a 
 lady of our acquaintance called on us and 
 resolutely declined to accept our refusal of 
 her invitation to an evening party; "for," 
 said she, " I have got a lion coming." We 
 at once retracted our plea of a prior engage- 
 ment, and became as anxious to go, as we 
 had previously been to stay away. 
 
 We went early, and posted ourselves in 
 an eligible part of the drawing-room, from 
 whence we could hope to obtain a full view 
 of the interesting animal. Two or three 
 hours passed, the quadrilles began, the room 
 filled ; but no lion appeared. The lady of 
 the house became inconsolable, — for it is one 
 
 12 
 
178 Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 
 
 of the peculiar privileges of these lions to 
 make solemn appointments and never keep 
 them, —when all of a sudden there came a 
 tremendous double rap at the street door, 
 and the master of the house, after gliding 
 out (unobserved as he flattered himself) to 
 peep over the banisters, came into the room, 
 rubbing his hands together with great glee, 
 and cried out in a very important voice, 
 
 " My dear, Mr. (naming the lion) has 
 
 this moment arrived." 
 
 Upon this, all eyes were turned towards 
 the door, and we observed several young 
 ladies, who had been laughing and convers- 
 ing previously with great gaiety and good 
 humour, grow extremely quiet and senti- 
 mental ; while some young gentlemen, who 
 had been cutting great figures in the facetious 
 and small-talk way, suddenly sank very 
 obviously in the estimation of the company, 
 and were looked upon with great coldness 
 and indifference. Even the young man who 
 
Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 179 
 
 had been ordered from the music shop to 
 play the pianoforte was visibly affected, and 
 struck several false notes in the excess of his 
 excitement. 
 
 All this time there was a great talking 
 outside, more than once accompanied by a 
 loud laugh, and a cry of " Oh ! capital ! ex- 
 cellent ! " from which we inferred that the lion 
 was jocose, and that these exclamations w T ere 
 occasioned by the transports of his keeper 
 and our host. Nor were we deceived ; for 
 when the lion at last appeared, we overheard 
 his keeper, who was a little prim man, whis- 
 per to several gentlemen of his acquaintance, 
 with uplifted hands, and every expression of 
 
 half-suppressed admiration, that (naming 
 
 the lion again) was in such cue to-night ! 
 
 The lion was a literary one. Of course, 
 there were a vast number of people present 
 who had admired his roarings, and were 
 anxious to be introduced to him ; and very 
 pleasant it was to see them brought up for 
 
1 80 Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 
 
 the purpose, and to observe the patient dig- 
 nity with which he received all their patting 
 and caressing. This brought forcibly to our 
 mind what we had so often witnessed at 
 country fairs, where the other lions are com- 
 pelled to go through as many forms of cour- 
 tesy as they chance to be acquainted with, 
 just as often as admiring parties happen to 
 drop in upon them. 
 
 While the lion was exhibiting in this 
 way, his keeper was not idle, for he mingled 
 among the crowd, and spread his praises 
 most industriously. To one gentleman he 
 whispered some very choice thing that the 
 noble animal had said in the very act of 
 coming up stairs, which, of course, rendered 
 the mental effort still more astonishing; to 
 another he murmured a hasty account of a 
 grand dinner that had taken place the day 
 before, where twenty-seven gentlemen had 
 got up all at once to demand an extra cheer 
 for the lion ; and to the ladies he made 
 
Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 181 
 
 sundry promises of interceding to procure 
 the majestic brute's sign-manual for their 
 albums. Then, there were little private con- 
 sultations in different corners, relative to the 
 personal appearance and stature of the lion ; 
 whether he was shorter than they had ex- 
 pected to see him, or taller, or thinner, or 
 fatter, or younger, or older ; whether he was 
 like his portrait, or unlike it ; and whether 
 the particular shade of his eyes was black, or 
 blue, or hazel, or green, or yellow, or mixture. 
 At all these consultations the keeper assisted ; 
 and, in short, the lion was the sole and single 
 subject of discussion till they sat him down 
 to whist, and then the people relapsed into 
 their old topics of conversation — themselves 
 and each other. 
 
 We must confess that we looked forward 
 with no slight impatience to the announce- 
 ment of supper ; for if you wish to see a 
 tame lion under particularly favourable cir- 
 cumstances, feeding-time is the period of all 
 
1 82 Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 
 
 others to pitch upon. We were therefore 
 very much delighted to observe a sensation 
 among the guests, which we well knew how 
 to interpret, and immediately afterwards to 
 behold the lion escorting the lady of the 
 house downstairs. We offered our arm to an 
 elderly female of our acquaintance, who — 
 dear old soul ! — is the very best person that 
 ever lived, to lead down to any meal ; for, be 
 the room ever so small, or the party ever so 
 large, she is sure, by some intuitive perception 
 of the eligible, to push and pull herself 
 and conductor close to the best dishes on the 
 table ; — we say we offered our arm to this 
 elderly female, and, descending the stairs 
 shortly after the lion, were fortunate enough 
 to obtain a seat nearly opposite him. 
 
 Of course the keeper was there already. 
 He had planted himself at precisely that dis- 
 tance from his charge which afforded him a 
 decent pretext for raising his voice, when he 
 addressed him, to so loud a key, as could not 
 
Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 183 
 
 fail to attract the attention of the whole com- 
 pany, and immediately began to apply himself 
 seriously to the task of bringing the lion out, 
 and putting him through the whole of his 
 manoeuvres. Such flashes of wit as he 
 elicited from the lion ! First of all, they 
 began to make puns upon a salt-cellar, and 
 then upon the breast of a fowl, and then upon 
 the trifle ; but the best jokes of all were 
 decidedly on the lobster salad, upon which 
 latter subject the lion came out most vigor- 
 ously, and, in the opinion of the most com- 
 petent authorities, quite outshone himself. 
 This is a very excellent mode of shining in 
 society, and is founded, we humbly conceive, 
 upon the classic model of the dialogues 
 between Mr. Punch and his friend the pro- 
 prietor, wherein the latter takes all the up- 
 hill work, and is content to pioneer to the 
 jokes and repartees of Mr. P. himself, who 
 never fails to gain great credit and excite 
 much laughter thereby. Whatever it be 
 
1 84 Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 
 
 founded on, however, we recommend it to 
 all lions, present and to come ; for in this 
 instance it succeeded to admiration, and 
 perfectly dazzled the whole body of hearers. 
 
 When the salt-cellar, and the fowl's breast, 
 and the trifle, and the lobster salad were all 
 exhausted, and could not afford standing 
 room for another solitary witticism, the 
 keeper performed that very dangerous feat 
 which is still done with some of the caravan 
 lions, although in one instance it terminated 
 fatally, of putting his head in the animal's 
 mouth, and placing himself entirely at its 
 mercy. Boswell frequently presents a 
 melancholy instance of the lamentable results 
 of this achievement, and other keepers and 
 jackals have been terribly lacerated for their 
 daring. It is due to our lion to state, that 
 he condesended to be trifled with, in the 
 most gentle manner, and finally went home 
 with the showman in a hack cab : perfectly 
 peaceable, but slightly fuddled. 
 
Some Particulars Concerning a Lion, 185 
 
 Being in a contemplative mood, we were 
 led to make some reflections upon the cha- 
 racter and conduct of this genus of lions as 
 we walked homewards, and we were not long 
 in arriving at the conclusion that our former 
 impression in their favour was very much 
 strengthened and confirmed by what we had 
 recently seen. While the other lions receive 
 company and compliments in a sullen, moody, 
 not to say snarling manner, these appear 
 flattered by the attentions that are paid 
 them ; while those conceal themselves to the 
 utmost of their power from the vulgar gaze, 
 these court the popular eye, and, unlike their 
 brethren, whom nothing short of compulsion 
 will move to exertion, are ever ready to dis- 
 play their acquirements to the wondering 
 throng. We have known bears of undoubted 
 ability who, when the expectations of a large 
 audience have been wound up to the utmost 
 pitch, have peremptorily refused to dance ; 
 well- taught monkeys, who have unaccount- 
 
1 86 Some Particulars Concerning a Lion. 
 
 ably objected to exhibit on the slack wire ; 
 and elephants of unquestioned genius, who 
 have suddenly declined to turn the barrel- 
 organ ; but we never once knew or heard of 
 a biped lion, literary or otherwise,— and we 
 state it as a fact which is highly creditable to 
 the whole species, — who, occasion offering, 
 did not seize with avidity on any opportunity 
 which was afforded him, of performing to 
 his heart's content on the first violin. 
 
MR. ROBERT BOLTON, 
 
 THE 
 "GENTLEMAN CONNECTED WITH THE PRESS." 
 
 In the parlour of the Green Dragon, a pub- 
 lic-house in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 Westminster Bridge, everybody talks politics, 
 every evening, the great political authority 
 being Mr. Robert Bolton, an individual who 
 defines himself as " a gentleman connected 
 with the press," which is a definition of pecu- 
 liar indefiniteness. Mr. Robert Bolton's 
 regular circle of admirers and listeners are 
 an undertaker, a greengrocer, a hair-dresser, 
 a baker, a large stomach surmounted by a 
 man's head, and placed on the top of two 
 particularly short legs, and a thin man in 
 black, name, profession, and pursuit unknown, 
 
Mi\ Robert Bolton. 
 
 who always sits in the same position, always 
 displays the same long, vacant face, and never 
 opens his lips, surrounded as he is by most 
 enthusiastic conversation, except to puff forth 
 a volume of tobacco smoke, or give vent to 
 a very snappy, loud, and shrill hem ! The 
 conversation sometimes turns upon literature, 
 Mr. Bolton being a literary character, and 
 always upon such news of the day as is 
 exclusively possessed by that talented indi- 
 vidual. I found myself (of course, accident- 
 ally) in the Green Dragon the other evening, 
 and, being somew T hat amused by the following 
 conversation, preserved it. 
 
 " Can you lend me a ten pound note 
 till Christmas ? " inquired the hair-dresser of 
 the stomach. 
 
 " Where's your security, Mr. Clip ? " 
 " My stock in trade, — there's enough of 
 it, I'm thinking, Mr. Thicknesse. Some fifty 
 wigs, two poles, half-a-dozen head blocks, and 
 a dead Bruin/' 
 
Mr. Robert Bolton. 189 
 
 " No, I wont, then," growled out Thick- 
 nesse. " I lends nothing on the security 
 of the whigs or the Poles either. As for 
 whigs, they're cheats ; as for the Poles, 
 they've got no cash. I never have nothing 
 to do with blockheads, unless I can't awoid 
 it (ironically), and a dead bears about as 
 much use to me as I could be to a dead bear." 
 
 " Well, then," urged the other, " there's a 
 book as belonged to Pope, Byron's Poems, 
 valued at forty pounds, because it's got Pope's 
 identical scratch on the back ; what do you 
 think of that for security ? " 
 
 " Well, to be sure ! " cried the baker. 
 " But how d'ye mean, Mr. Clip ? " 
 
 11 Mean ! why, that it's got the hotter gruff 
 of Pope. 
 
 " Steal not this book, for fear of hangman's rope ; 
 For it belongs to Alexander Pope." 
 
 All that's written on the inside of the binding 
 of the book ; so, as my son says, we're boitnd 
 to believe it." 
 
 13 
 
190 Mr. Robert Bolton. 
 
 "Well, sir," observed the undertaker, 
 deferentially, and in a half-whisper, leaning 
 over the table, and knocking over the hair- 
 dresser's grog as he spoke, " that argument's 
 very easy upset." 
 
 " Perhaps, sir," said Clip, a little flurried, 
 " you'll pay for the first upset afore you thinks 
 of another." 
 
 " Now," said the undertaker, bowing 
 amicably to the hairdresser, " I think, I says 
 I think — you'll excuse me, Mr. Clip, I think, 
 you see, that won't go down with the present 
 company — unfortunately, my master had the 
 honour of making the coffin of that ere Lord's 
 housemaid, not no more nor twenty year ago. 
 Don't think I'm proud on it, gentlemen ; 
 others might be ; but I hate rank of any sort. 
 I've no more respect for a Lord's footman 
 than I have for any respectable tradesman in 
 this room. I may say no more nor I have 
 for Mr. Clip ! (bowing). Therefore, that ere 
 Lord must have been born long after Pope 
 
Mr. Robert Bolton. 191 
 
 died. And it's a logical interferance to defer, 
 that they neither of them lived at the same 
 time. So what I mean is this here, that 
 Pope never had no book, never seed, felt, 
 never smelt no book (triumphantly) as be- 
 longed to that ere Lord. And, gentlemen, 
 when I consider how patiently you have 
 'eared the ideas what I have expressed, I feel 
 bound, as the best way to reward you for the 
 kindness you have exhibited, to sit down 
 without saying anything more — partickler as 
 I perceive a worthier visitor nor myself is 
 just entered. I am not in the habit of pay- 
 ing compliments, gentlemen ; when I do, 
 therefore, I hope I strikes with double 
 force." 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Murgatroyd ! what's all this 
 about striking with double force ? " said the 
 object of the above remark, as he entered. 
 " I never excuse a man's getting into a rage 
 during winter, even when he's seated so close 
 to the fire as you are. It is very inju- 
 
192 Mr. Robert Bolton. 
 
 dicious to put yourself into such a per- 
 spiration. What is the cause of this 
 extreme physical and mental excitement, 
 sir ? " 
 
 Such was the very philosophical address 
 of Mr. Robert Bolton, a shorthand- writer, as 
 he termed himself — a bit of equivoque pass- 
 ing current among his fraternity, which must 
 give the uninitiated a vast idea of the establish- 
 ment of the ministerial organ, while to the 
 initiated it signifies that no one paper can lay 
 claim to the enjoyment of their services. 
 Mr. Bolton was a young man, with a some- 
 what sickly and very dissipated expression of 
 countenance. His habiliments were composed 
 of an exquisite union of gentility, slovenli- 
 ness, assumption, simplicity, newness, and old 
 age. Half of him was dressed for the win- 
 ter, the other half for the summer. His hat 
 was of the newest cut, the D'Orsay ; his 
 trousers had been white, but the inroads of 
 mud and ink, etc., had given them a piebald 
 
Mr, Robert Bolton. 193 
 
 appearance ; round his throat he wore a very 
 high black cravat, of the most tyrannical 
 stiffness ; while his tout ensemble was hidden 
 beneath the enormous folds of an old brown 
 poodle-collared great coat, which was closely 
 buttoned up to the aforesaid cravat. His 
 fingers peeped through the ends of his black 
 kid gloves, and two of the toes of each foot 
 took a similar view of society through the 
 extremities of his high-lows. Sacred to the 
 bare walls of his garret be the mysteries of 
 his interior dress ! He was a short, spare 
 man, of a somewhat inferior deportment. 
 Everybody seemed influenced by his entry 
 into the room, and his salutation of each 
 member partook of the patronizing. The 
 hairdresser made way for him between him- 
 self and the stomach. A minute afterwards 
 he had taken possession of his pint and pipe. 
 A pause in the conversation took place. 
 Everybody was waiting, anxious for his first 
 observation. 
 
194 Mr. Robert Bolton. 
 
 " Horrid murder in Westminster this 
 morning," observed Mr. Bolton. 
 
 Everybody changed their positions. All 
 eyes were fixed upon the man of paragraphs. 
 
 "A baker murdered his son by boiling 
 him in a copper," said Mr. Bolton. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " exclaimed everybody, 
 in simultaneous horror. 
 
 " Boiled him, gentlemen ! " added Mr. 
 Bolton, with the most effective emphasis ; 
 " boiled him ! " 
 
 " And the particulars, Mr. B.," inquired 
 the hairdresser, " the particulars ? " 
 
 Mr. Bolton took a very long draught of 
 porter, and some two or three dozen whiffs of 
 tobacco, doubtless to instil into the commer- 
 cial capacities of the company the superiority 
 of a gentleman connected with the press, and 
 then said — 
 
 " The man was a baker, gentlemen. 
 (Every one looked at the baker present, who 
 stared at Bolton.) His victim, being his son, 
 
Mr. Robert Bolton. 195 
 
 also was necessarily the son of a baker. The 
 wretched murderer had a wife, whom he was 
 frequently in the habit, while in an intoxicated 
 state, of kicking, pummelling-, flinging mugs 
 at, knocking down, and half-killing while in 
 bed, by inserting in her mouth a considerable 
 portion of a sheet or blanket." 
 
 The speaker took another draught, every- 
 body looked at everybody else, and exclaimed, 
 " Horrid ! " 
 
 "It appears in evidence, gentlemen/' con- 
 tinued Mr. Bolton, " that, on the evening of 
 yesterday, Sawyer the baker came home in a 
 reprehensible state of beer. Mrs. S., con- 
 nubially considerate, carried him in that con- 
 dition upstairs into his chamber, and consigned 
 him to their mutual couch. In a minute or 
 two she lay sleeping beside the man whom 
 the morrow's dawn beheld a murderer ! 
 (Entire silence informed the reporter that his 
 picture had attained the awful effect he de- 
 sired.) The son came home about an hour 
 
196 Mr. Robert Bolton. 
 
 afterwards, opened the door, and went up to 
 bed. Scarcely (gentlemen, conceive his feel- 
 ings of alarm), scarcely had he taken off his 
 indescribables, when shrieks (to his experi- 
 enced ear maternal shrieks) scared the silence 
 of surrounding night. He put his indescrib- 
 ables on again, and ran downstairs. He 
 opened the door of the parental bed-chamber. 
 His father was dancing upon his mother. 
 What must have been his feelings ! In the 
 agony of the minute he rushed at his male 
 parent as he was about to plunge a knife 
 into the side of his female. The mother 
 shrieked. The father caught the son (who 
 had wrested the knife from the paternal 
 grasp) up in his arms, carried him downstairs, 
 shoved him into a copper of boiling water 
 among some linen, closed the lid, and jumped 
 upon the top of it, in which position he was 
 found with a ferocious countenance by the 
 mother, who arrived in the melancholy wash- 
 house just as he had so settled himself. 
 
Mr. Robert Bolton. 197 
 
 " ' Where's my boy ? ' shrieked the 
 mother. 
 
 "'In that copper, boiling/ coolly replied 
 the benign father. 
 
 " Struck by the awful intelligence, the 
 mother rushed from the house, and alarmed 
 the neighbourhood. The police entered a 
 minute afterwards. The father, having bolted 
 the wash-house door, had bolted himself. 
 They dragged the lifeless body of the boiled 
 baker from the cauldron, and, with a promp- 
 titude commendable in men of their station, 
 they immediately carried it to the station- 
 house. Subsequently, the baker was appre- 
 hended while seated on the top of a lamp- 
 post in Parliament Street, lighting his pipe." 
 
 The whole horrible ideality of the Mys- 
 teries of Udolpho, condensed into the pithy 
 effect of a ten-line paragraph, could not pos- 
 sibly have so affected the narrators auditory. 
 Silence, the purest and most noble of all kinds 
 of applause, bore ample testimony to the 
 
198 Mr. Robert Bolton. 
 
 barbarity of the baker, as well as to Bolton's 
 knack of narration ; and it was only broken 
 after some minutes had elapsed by interjeo 
 tional expressions of the intense indignation 
 of every man present. The baker wondered 
 how a British baker could so disgrace himself 
 and the highly honourable calling to which 
 he belonged ; and the others indulged in a 
 variety of wonderments connected with the 
 subject ; among which not the least wonder- 
 ment w r as that which was awakened by the 
 genius and information of Mr. Robert Bolton, 
 who, after a glowing eulogium on himself, and 
 his unspeakable influence with the daily press, 
 was proceeding, with a most solemn counte- 
 nance, to hear the pros and cons of the Pope 
 autograph question, when I took up my hat, 
 and left. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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